#fifteentoone

On Friday 5 November 1999 I auditioned for the TV quiz show, 'Fifteen To One'. In around 2001, I wrote about what happened

The audition was being held at a community hall on the outskirts of York, and so after 4 hours of driving, trains and sitting on cold station platforms waiting for connections, I finally got to the place about quarter of an hour before the 10 o'clock deadline.

I walked into the canteen where coffee was being served and it looked like a cross between a meeting of the Over-60s club and a gathering of geography teachers (clever people with beards in hideous patterned pullovers are always geography teachers, even the women!). I got my coffee and found a seat with a few other people waiting as well. The main focus of conversation was whether W.G.S. would be there. W.G.S. is William G Stewart, the presenter and producer of the quiz. Apparently he treats the show was 'his baby' and regularly visits the auditions to help out and one person who had appeared on the show before was telling us what a nice man he was. We talked about what they were looking for. Someone said that the purpose of the audition was to weed out those who clammed up under pressure and those who were there for the 'comedy value', who laughed and joked and who would undermine the seriousness of the quiz.

After a few minutes we were called into the main hall, where seats had been laid out. Two concentric semicircles of fifteen seats, the front row of the semicircle were numbered one to fifteen and the second row behind each had three cards marked one, two or three, which were to be used to mark the number of lives the contestants had remaining. The rest of the hall was used for seating us all. There must have been about 150 people there (although only 91 took part in the quiz, the rest must have been friends, family or 'hangers-on'). We all lined up to register, and were given a sticky label with our names on to wear, so those that were judging us knew who we were, and £10 towards our travelling costs.

We were introduced to a man named Phillip (Mary from Stockton on Tees who I was sat next to thought she'd recognised him as once playing someone Tanner in 'Coronation Street'). He explained that he was going to be question master today (W.G.S. couldn't make it). He said it was to be a relaxed audition. No one was too bothered about the scoring, they were more concerned about finding the people who had a good grasp of general knowledge. He then introduced a woman called Camille. She explained what would happen after today. We would all hear by the end of November as to whether we were successful in our audition. If we were, then the recordings were going to be in Wandsworth in south east London sometime between Christmas week and the end of February 2000. They would pay our train fares and pay for hotel accommodation if necessary. And then the auditions began ...

Phillip asked for the first 15 volunteers. I'm surprised no one was injured in the crush to the front. The 15 took their places and the games started. It was very relaxed. The scoring fell by the wayside. Philip copied the first round of the quiz from the TV version and asked each person 2 questions each, then emulated the nomination round of the game, where if you answered a question correctly you got to nominate who was asked the next one. After a few minutes of nominations, the judges then started telling Philip who to ask the questions to (we understood at the time it was to make sure everybody got a fair go).

The first 15 finished their game and yet again the rush to the front was phenomenal. In fact they rushed so quickly I decided to sit back, watch everybody else and have my go in the last game.

The last game arrived and we made out way up to the front. Mary who I'd been sat next to in the audience said she didn't want to be number 15 - she'd been that number in the game when she'd appeared on TV and hated it for some reason - so we swapped places. I was 15 and she was 14. It was then it was realised that 91 didn't divide by 15 exactly, so in this game we had 'Sixteen To One'!

Philip started at number one and started asking the questions. As he made his way further down the line I could feel myself getting nervous and starting to shake. I was listening to his questions to the other people and then he turned to me and said "Mark, what's ....". I think the question was something like "In Medieval history, what term was used for knights who went looking for adventure?". I didn't have the faintest, so I guessed. "Crusaders?", I said. It was wrong but at least I'd said something!! I didn't do well on my next question either, something about architecture and I was beginning to think all was lost. One women got a question about Council Tax, and I remembered wishing I'd picked that seat! My second question was something about architecture. "What is a campanile?". I hadn't the foggiest. I said an archway. Wrong! The correct answer is a bell tower (and with the benefit of hindsight I could have had a good guess - I knew that campanology was the art of bell ringing, so I could have made the connection!).

Then the nominations round started. I heard someone nominate me, and Philip asked "Mark, Classical music ...". I was happy. All the other classical music questions during the day had been along the lines of "Who composed ...?" and I'd got almost all of those right, so I felt safe. So Philip continued, "What is the name of New York's foremost classical music concert hall?" or something like that. Oh God! That's not classical music questioning ... erm, right, think ... 'Radio City Music Hall'. No, that's not right. Then from somewhere in the back of my brain I thought "Carnegie Hall". "Correct" said Philip. Wow! Major sigh of relief. The only place I think I'd have got that from is from an old 'Tom and Jerry' cartoon where they play classical music together and I'm sure the Carnegie Hall featured in that. Frankly, I don't care where I got the answer from as long as it's correct. I was nominated for another question. I can't remember what it was but I got it right. Phew! I was redeeming myself.

It then got to the bit where the judges were telling Philip who to ask questions to. "Ask Mark number 15" one of them said. He asked me a question about Australia. He named three things and asked me that they all were. I can't remember what the names were but I instantly thought they were either deserts or rivers. Then I thought that I knew the name of at least one Australian desert. I couldn't remember the actual name of the one I remembered but I knew it wasn't any of the names he read out so I guessed rivers, and was right!!

And then the audition was over, and I then put my efforts into calming down and stopping shaking.

On the way out I was talking to Douglas, an elderly ex-serviceman, who said to me "You'll be invited to a recording, they only ask the extra questions to people they're thinking of inviting just to double check them and see how they get on with extra questions and check their breadth of general knowledge".

Sadly, some three weeks after the audition, I got the letter saying that I was 'not successful on this occasion'. Oh well, according to the rules I should be able to re-apply around 2006!