“Oh, come on!” Who the 28 years in which Jeremy Paxman took the hit BBC quiz? University Challenge want to summarize very briefly comes to these three words with a total of eight letters. Sometimes they were meant as an expression of impatience, other times they expressed slight desperation at a stupid answer. But the words were never negative or mean. There was tenderness in it, a critical affection for the eight students of the two university lectures who shared their knowledge with the television viewers. Where to present news night was work for Paxman for many years, the student quiz was his hobby there.
Eight years after retiring as anchorman of the current affairs column, 72-year-old Paxman University Challenge over to Amol Rajan. After Bamber Gascoigne and Paxman, this 39-year-old journalist of Indian descent will only be the third presenter of the knowledge quiz, which was first seen on screen sixty years ago. Although there is a chance that Paxman, who suffers from Parkinson’s disease, will occasionally present a documentary, one of the greats in the history of the 100-year-old BBC disappears. The end of an era.
Admirers and Critics
For many politicians, Paxman’s departure was news night a relief at the time. In a quarter of a century he had emerged as a tenacious, ruthless interviewer, one who always asked himself why the interviewee was lying during interviews with politicians. It earned him admirers at home and abroad, but not every viewer was pleased with his style. In June 2002 he received a short letter that read ‘Sir, I think you are an ignorant lout‘, which means: ‘Sir, I think you are an ignorant bastard.’ The Garrick Club, a gentlemen’s club, initially refused to admit him as a member.
On BBC radio he had on the current affairs programme Today a kindred spirit in John Humphrys, who often went in with his legs straight. The Queen once told him that if she ever did an interview, at least it wouldn’t be with him; he took that as a compliment.
The Welsh Humphrys showed a milder side as the presenter of the knowledge quiz between 2003 and 2021 mastermind. Nine years earlier, in 1994, the BBC had given fellow Rottweiler Paxman the opportunity to show his playful and gentle side by University Challenge to give it a second life.
The Young Ones
In the 1960s and 1970s, this quiz had become a huge success under the direction of Gascoigne, an intellectual (deceased earlier this year) alumnus of the Eton boarding school. Phrases like ‘Your starter for ten, no conferring‘, ‘Fingers on buzzers‘ and ‘I’ll have to hurry you‘ became common expressions. Memorable is an episode from 1975, when a team of young socialists from the University of Manchester answered every question with ‘Marx’ and ‘Trotsky’, in protest against the domination of the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge..
The decline started in the eighties, which was reflected in the increasingly later broadcast times. In the sitcom The Young Ones used to be University Challenge the butt of ridicule when the anarchists Rick, Vyvyan, Mike and Neil represented ‘Scumbag College’. In 1987 the quiz stopped. When the BBC wanted to make a new start seven years later, it saw Paxman as the ideal man for the task.
Petrarch Sonnets
Initially, Paxman declined the honor of following in the footsteps of the legendary Gascoigne. A week after the rejection, he met Gascoigne by chance in the British Library. The old presenter turned out to have also been asked, but he thought it was time for a breath of fresh air. Paxman immediately changed his mind.
To his delight, the vacancy turned out to be still open and a short time later he was in a sixties building in a suburb of Manchester. It turned out that in the adjacent studio too The Jeremy Kyle Show to be included. Paxman fantasized about what would happen if the students in their blazers or wool sweaters accidentally hit the British version of Jerry Springer would walk in, or the other way around if a wimp was asked an initial question about Petrarch sonnets.
With his sharp tongue, humor and played sternness (‘You smart-asses!’) Paxman proved to be the ideal presenter. The alumnus of St. Catharine’s College, Cambridge, loved being among the new generation, among the ‘swottier (more fanatical, red.) brains‘. Paxman radiated authority, though, unlike his predecessor, he often had no idea of the answers. In his memoirs A Life in Questions he praised the simplicity of the quiz, such as the lack of prizes. One producer called it a ‘little black dress’ among the shows, indicating its timelessness. Now the relatively unknown Rajan has to wear this dress.
A tough task, because Paxman had become the face of this academic pub quiz.
3 x Jeremy Paxman
The appointment of Paxman’s successor Rajan has not gone down well with everyone. Times Radiohost Mariella Frostrup wondered if it wasn’t time to name a woman.
Paxman presented a special episode in 1999, featuring tabloids against quality newspapers. In the latter team was a certain Boris Johnson. The tabloids won.
On the first episode, one of the contestants was a black Cambridge student for whom no question was too difficult. Afterwards, Paxman approached him. He thought this student was an excellent signboard for black youth from deprived areas. The student in question, Kwasi Kwarteng, turned out to be a Ghanaian prince who had studied at Eton. Today he is Minister of Economic Affairs.