<\/p>\n
F<\/span>or Monty Panesar, it was answering that Germany played their home football matches in Athens. For David Lammy, it was saying Henry VIII\u2019s heir was Henry VII. And for actor Amanda Henderson it was responding with the name Sharon to a question about Greta Thunberg.<\/p>\n Panesar\u2019s disastrous appearance <\/a>on Celebrity Mastermind six years ago was used to taunt him this week<\/a> by Australia\u2019s cricket captain Steve Smith.<\/p>\n Lammy\u2019s 2009 wrong answers on the BBC show were recently dredged up by Robert Jenrick to question the intelligence of the justice secretary<\/a> whom he now dubs Mastermind<\/a>.<\/p>\n And Henderson\u2019s 2020 gaffe about Thunberg<\/a> caused such a storm on social media that the Swedish climate activist briefly changed her Twitter name to Sharon.<\/p>\n The perils of making a celebrity appearance on a gameshow known for attracting eggheads would appear obvious and can cause lasting reputational damage. So why do celebrities ever agree to appear on such quizzes?<\/p>\n Their agents claim it can increase their clients\u2019 profile and show off their human side.<\/p>\n Bronagh Monahan, cofounder of Mon Rae Management, which specialises in representing YouTubers, said: \u201cThese things are generally for charity so there\u2019s a nice halo effect for appearing.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s the taking part that counts. If you get something wrong, it shows you are fallible which makes you popular.\u201d<\/p>\n Don\u2019t believe it, says the Guardian\u2019s sketch writer John Crace, who is still traumatised by spelling mozzarella wrong<\/a> on Celebrity University Challenge.<\/p>\n \u201cI still get humiliated on a regular basis by my family reminding me of Mozzarellagate,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Crace\u2019s tip to anyone tempted to appear on such quizzes is: don\u2019t.<\/p>\n \u201cUnless you are exceptionally clever you are likely to make a fool of yourself,\u201d he said. \u201cThe producers are hoping you make an arse of yourself as that makes the best TV.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/span>Monty Panesar\u2019s disastrous appearance on Celebrity Mastermind six years ago was used to taunt him this week by Australia\u2019s cricket captain Steve Smith. <\/span> Photograph: BBC<\/p>\n Crace warned that University Challenge is even more prone to humiliation than Mastermind, because it involves buzzing in with embarrassingly wrong answers, and it does not involve a specialist subject that you can prepare for.<\/p>\n Crace said: \u201cDoing it on the TV is far harder than being a know-all at home. I am quite handy at UC at home and thought I was going to be a star. I wasn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n Not all quizshow appearances end in shame. Journalist and author David Hepworth wanted to turn down an invitation to appear on University Challenge for fear of being shown up. He only agreed after his wife pointed out \u201cyou wouldn\u2019t be asked again\u201d.<\/p>\n He didn\u2019t regret after he helped his Middlesex team win the 2023 competition.<\/p>\n But even after this success he would not be tempted to appear on Celebrity<\/a> Mastermind, describing it as \u201can exercise in TV exploitation\u201d.<\/p>\n Maths teacher Bobby Seagull has built a media career on his successful performances on University Challenge. He has also won celebrity versions of Mastermind and Pointless and now coaches celebrity contestants.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Get the best TV reviews, news and features in your inbox every Monday<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/span><\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n \u201cMy advice is always to relax and enjoy it. If you treat it too seriously then you panic and get into that circle of doom we\u2019ve seen so many times in celebrity quizzes.\u201d<\/p>\n Seagull\u2019s tips include listening to recordings of the quizmaster to get used to their pronunciations, and binge watching other quizshows.<\/p>\n Even Seagull is haunted by the questions that he has got wrong, such as mistaking Barry Manilow for Rod Stewart. He insisted that Panesar\u2019s Mastermind flop could have happened to anyone.<\/p>\n Seagull said: \u201cIf you make a couple of mistakes, it really knocks your confidence. As a maths teacher I see that in class all the time.<\/p>\n <\/span>Bobby Seagull on University Challenge in 2017.<\/span> Photograph: BBC<\/p>\n \u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter how clever you are \u2013 you could be Stephen Fry and a brain fog can still obscure your ability to retrieve information under pressure.\u201d<\/p>\n He warned celebrities to stay off social media if they do blunder. Online pile-ons can now be so harsh that Seagull questions the future of such shows.<\/p>\n \u201cThe risk of social media blowback is getting to a point when its becoming difficult for producers to recruit celebrities of note to these shows,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Alex Segal, managing director of the talent agency InterTalent, disagrees. \u201cPeople do these shows for visibility, they can win good money for charity and its fun. It\u2019s not that deep.\u201d<\/p>\n Segal does warns clients they could be made to \u201clook silly\u201d, and occasionally he has advised against appearances on Mastermind when celebrities do not have time to read up on their specialist subject.<\/p>\n But he said even wrong answers can be entertaining. \u201cI had Omid Djalili do Mastermind. When he didn\u2019t know the answers, he came up with the most ludicrous answers. He didn\u2019t look bad, he just looked funny.\u201d<\/p>\n Asked for the alternative name for the horned rattlesnake based on its movement, Djalili answered \u201cwrithing erotically\u201d. The correct answer was sidewinder.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.theguardian.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For Monty Panesar, it was answering that Germany played their home football matches in Athens. For David Lammy, it was saying Henry VIII\u2019s heir was Henry VII. And for actor Amanda Henderson it was responding with the name Sharon to a question about Greta Thunberg. Panesar\u2019s disastrous appearance on Celebrity Mastermind six years ago was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2174339,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2174338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/\u2018I-still-get-humiliated-the-perils-of-appearing-on-a.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2174338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2174338"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2174338\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2174340,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2174338\/revisions\/2174340"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2174339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2174338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2174338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2174338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}