Mastermind duo who met in Belfast so glad that they made a pass at one another
A couple who travelled here as quiz show rivals ended up as lovers following the show — after chatting at the airport before their flight back to England.
Claire Reynolds and John Robinson were both competing in the final of the famous programme, which was filmed in the city.
The nailbiting episode took place in November, but was only broadcast this week on BBC Two.
Claire (42), an actuary with NFU Mutual who is from Stratford-upon-Avon, was beaten by a point in the dying seconds.
But rather than feeling resentful of victor John, also 42 and a teacher from Sutton Coldfield, in the end love won — with the the pair hooking up after discovering they had a lot in common.
'The show was shot in Belfast and we were both flying back to Birmingham and we were on a flight together,' John explained.
'After we filmed the final, we had some time to kill at the airport. So we had a few drinks together and then got the plane back together and stayed in touch.
'Although we started as friends, it's more than that now. It did generally just start with the two of us just going out and having a drink together over a pop quiz. We happened to be single. And then, naturally, one thing led to another, and we became a couple.'
Now the Mastermind powerhouses like to quiz together.
'We've teamed up on a few occasions to do pop quizzes and stuff together,' explained John.
'So we've gone from being rivals on the show to working together as a team. Although I think I'm probably more competitive than Claire is.'
To prove the point, John won £500,000 on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire in 2019.
Claire is also a regular on the local quiz scene.
She said: 'I've always been a quizzer, and am part of a team on a Monday night.
'All my life I've done pub quizzes and always watched quiz shows on the TV. I still don't really know what possessed me, but at the start of 2024 I decided to apply for Mastermind.'
And that one point loss continues to rankle for Claire.
She said: 'It will always kind of be in the back of my mind because there were a few questions where I knew the answer, but because I was trying to answer quickly, the wrong thing came out. So that will always be there, but I don't mind, he was a very good quizzer.'
Claire had scored 12 points and no passes on her specialist round on mathematician Emmy Noether, and 17 on general knowledge.
John scored 12 and got one wrong with no passes on his specialist subject, the Empire State Building, leaving him needing more than 17 points in the general knowledge round to secure the win.
Recalling the final, John said: 'I was the last to play and needed to beat Claire's score of 29, but you can't think about that, you just have to focus on the questions, really. By the time I got to the end I had no idea if I had beaten her, lost or drawn — there's no running score in the studio.
'It was only when presenter Clive Myrie said 'congratulations, you've done it, you've scored 30 points', that I finally realised.'
After acing the online quiz and a video audition, and more cunning questions, Claire made her first appearance last August.
She came second but had a high score as a runner-up and made it through the semis, which she won, and then on to the final — where she was at least lucky in love.
Claire says her strengths are literature and geography, with food and drink and some sport being her weaker subjects.
It takes her about two months swotting up to learn a specialist subject, which has to be pre-approved by the Mastermind team.
It was announced in 2023 that Mastermind would be based, filmed and edited in Northern Ireland. The programme was previously produced from Salford.
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