The 3rd Degree: Series 1-7

The BBC Radio 4 Brainy Quiz Show

By: David Tyler

Narrated by: Steve Punt, full cast

A quiz show hosted by Steve Punt (star of BBC Radio 4’s The Now Show and the brains behind Horrible Histories) where a team of three University students take on a team of three of their professors.

Every week, at a different University, it pits a team of three Students against three of their Lecturers. The rounds vary between Specialist Knowledge and General Knowledge, quickfire bell-and-buzzer rounds and ‘Highbrow and Lowbrow’. Which of the students will turn out to be complete trivia-boffins? Will the Lecturers reveal they know more about Beyoncé than Barthes? There’s plenty of scope for embarrassment on both sides...

The universities in the first series are Southampton, Durham, Stirling, Reading, Salford & Middlesex.

The universities in the second series are the University of East Anglia, Swansea, Warwick, Sussex, Queen Mary London and Northampton

The universities in the third series are Edinburgh, Leeds, Leicester, Exeter, Bath Spa and Anglia Ruskin (in Cambridge) and the subjects range from Rocket Science (literally!) to Creative Music Technology. Meanwhile, the questions cover every subject under the sun, including dada & Dylan, The Kardashians & the Ku Klux Klan, gherkins & Gummi Bears and concrete & cogwheels...

The universities in the fourth series are Bristol, Kent, Bedfordshire, Aberystwyth, Nottingham & Birmingham and the subjects range from Sports Science to Theatre Studies via Welsh Folklore and Journalism. Meanwhile, the questions cover every subject under the sun, including Candy Crush Corner & cauliflowers, Kierkegaard and Kim Kardashian, Wagner, Debussy, Scooby-Doo, Geoff Hurst, Swedish massage and monkey glands...

The universities in the fifth series are Cardiff, Manchester, Essex, De Montfort, Aston & Surrey and the subjects range from Forensic Science to Contour Fashion via Psychology and Astrophysics. Meanwhile, the questions cover every subject under the sun, including both the Epic Of Gilgamesh and My Little Pony, Gogglebox & blood spatter patterns, tennis balls and the Treaty of Westphalia...

The universities in the sixth series are York, Gloucestershire, Chester, Glasgow, Birmingham City University & Bath and the subjects range from Theatre History to Cosmology via Sociology and Visual Communication. Meanwhile, the questions cover every subject under the sun, including such diverse concepts as Mary Poppins, Hugo Boss, trampolining and Star Wars, not to mention an unexpected fact about rats that’s once heard, never forgotten...

In the seventh series, the universities are Roehampton, Queen’s University Belfast, Hull, Derby, Liverpool and St John’s College Cambridge

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