2016/17, Episode 21 - Wolfson vs Jesus

If you haven’t already you can watch the episode here before reading the review:

Wolfson made their first ever appearance on UC in episode eleven of the first round, pipping SOAS in a breathless encounter involving molluscs. In the ten weeks since then I’ve been inundated (to the level of around once every five days) with tweets asking when they would be making their return. If you read this blog then you’ll probably know the cause of this, and if a stranger were to speak a certain word across a crowded room, you may even find yourself drawn to them…

Monkman.

With a face like thunder, and a voice like thunder, he leads his team like the warrior Kings of old, rousing his army of three with gloriously loud rhetoric, making speeches so sonorous they’ve been known to cure deafness. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen Rob Brydon’s ‘Small Man Trapped in Box’ (and for those of you who haven’t here’s a link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LE5UktH4iYY) but Eric Monkman’s voice is the opposite. Instead of acting like he is the one trapped, he yells all of his words like he thinks everyone around him can only hear him through thick panes of glass.

But his harrowing childhood (he was the only kid in his class not to get a megaphone for Christmas one year so had to make do with his own voicebox) has gained him a multitude of fans, and it is already possible to buy t-shirts emblazoned with his face, the mark of true fame.

Each year it seems we have a few contestants who, for whatever quirky reason, become Twitter heroes for the few months the show runs. Last year we had Oscar Powell and Hannah Woods, the year before; Theodore Loveday. This series we have Monkman. He and Emmanuel captain Bobby Seagull have both laid claim to this prestigious title. If Wolfson face Emmanuel at any point I can only imagine (and I’m loathe to use this phrase, but if Kim Kardashian can then so can I) it would break the internet (or at the very least the niche corner of Twitter where discussion of University Challenge takes place)

However, to leave Wolfson’s opponents tonight out of the discussion would be to do them a disservice. Jesus (very appropriately making an appearance in December) narrowly lost out to Oxford rivals Corpus Christi in the first round, and then stormed Queens’, Cambridge in the play-off. And they’re not lacking in characters either. They bring with them the goth-with-a-heart-of gold dreary-cheeriness of Sam Fairbrother, who dresses in as much black as you can get on a human being but isn’t averse to a baby-faced beam when he spots Kate Bush in the picture round. And their captain Theo Morris-Clarke, with his Professor X impersonation taking divine precedent.

The Pax Man warns the teams against qualifying for the quarter-finals, saying that they are a dangerous place best avoided. He’s been persisting with this joke since the current format was introduced, but its pretty simple. You need to win two matches to get to the semi finals, and if you lose two you’re out. But Jeremy feels the need to act like its directly equivalent to the undertaking of a mission to Mars in a Volkswagen Beatle. There’s no need for such dramatisation, especially in an episode where the leonine growling of Wolfson’s Wolf-man was sure to provide more than enough entertainment on its own.

Justin Yang snaffles up the first starter question for Wolfson, Monkman the second and his Wolfpack are soon 40 points to the good. Two exuberant penalty buzzes from Monkman offer Jesus a way back in, but they couldn’t capitalise. They do presently nip ahead for the briefest of moments, but deterred by Eric’s volcanic gaze they shy away and from then on the shoutiest man in the UK keeps his enemies at arms length with seven correct starters, and two more incorrect ones, just to keep them on their toes.

Any hopes Jesus may have had going into the final stages were sharply extinguished with a wrong buzz from Daniel Petrides, which confused his teammates no end (note the three very different kinds of perplexment displayed by the three of them) That left the scores at 175-120, and from then on it was a formality.

Wolfson knew diddly squat about cricket, but it didn’t matter, and they can take their place in the quarter finals knowing that if UC switched from being a quiz contest to a noise contest, they’d have very little competition.

Final Score: Wolfson 225 - 140 Jesus

Congratulations to Wolfson, not least because my promotional tweet for this episode was my most retweeted ever, and commiserations to Jesus, not least since Christmas is approaching. Balliol, Ox take on Robinson, Cam in the last match before the winter break next week. Still undecided as to whether I’ll take on the Christmas specials. Thanks for reading