Meet The Teams
SOUTH OF ENGLAND
Marcus Berkmann is a writer and columnist who contributes regularly to Private Eye, Saga magazine and the Daily Mail books pages. His books include A Shed of One’s Own: Midlife Without the Crisis, Fatherhood: The Truth and Berkmann’s Pop Miscellany. His latest book is Still a Bit of Snap in the Celery, published by Abacus in 2023.
Paul Sinha is a stand-up comedian, professional quizzer and broadcaster. Born in the UK to Bengali parents, he qualified as a doctor in the 1990s before establishing himself on the stand-up comedy circuit. His own comedy series can be heard on Radio 4, as can his regular appearances on shows such as
The News Quiz. He is the host of the ITV quiz show
Paul Sinha's TV Showdown and is also well known to audiences of
The Chase and
Beat The Chasers.
WALES
Myfanwy Alexander is a writer and broadcaster, casting a satirical eye over life in Wales and beyond from her home in Montgomeryshire.
Cariad Lloyd is revered as one of the UK's best improvisers and created the award-winning comedy show Austentatious: An Improvised Jane Austen Novel. She has worked on numerous comedy shows, notably starring opposite Sara Pascoe in Out Of Her Mind for the BBC, and recently in the Alan Carr biopic Changing Ends for ITV. She is the author of You Are Not Alone which reached no.7 in the Times bestseller list. She has been seen as herself on Have I Got News For You, QI, Celebrity Pointless and House of Games, where she won her Champion of Champions week. She has won a variety of awards for her podcast Griefcast, and recently launched the Weirdos' Book Club podcast with Sara Pascoe.
THE MIDLANDS
Frankie Fanko is a freelance translator and keen
quizzer. After appearing on the BBC’s Make Me An Egghead in 2016 she
went on to become an Only Connect series champion, Mastermind and
Brain of Britain Finalist, and the first female champion of Radio 4’s
music quiz Counterpoint. She lives in Market Harborough with her husband
and daughter.
Stephen
Maddock is the Principal of the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. A lapsed violinist, singer and conductor as well as a quiz and crossword
addict and a proud Man City fan, he has appeared in every series of Round Britain Quiz since 2004. He lives in Solihull with his wife and two
children.
NORTHERN IRELAND
Paddy Duffy is a TV producer and
broadcaster. He's a familiar voice on radio in his native Ulster and across
Ireland, and is the author of two books on Irish politics and culture. His
television work has ranged from the BBC's BAFTA-nominated documentary series Inside
Obama's White House, to quiz shows such as University Challenge.
Paddy is also a captain of the Irish international quiz squad.
Freya McClements is Northern Editor of The Irish
Times and the co-author of the award-winning Children of the
Troubles (2019). She was the captain of the team from Magdalen College,
Oxford, which won University Challenge in 2004 and now also sets
questions for other broadcast quizzes
NORTH OF ENGLAND
Jenny Ryan was born and
raised in Bolton. A professional quizzer, she is well known as the ‘The
Vixen’ on the TV Quiz Show The Chase and Beat the Chasers. She’s
appeared on University Challenge, Only Connect and Mastermind
and also worked as a researcher and writer for shows like the Weakest Link
and QI. She co-hosts a quizzing podcast Fingers on Buzzers. She
can also play the ukulele and showed off her singing chops on X-factor:
Celebrity in 2019.
Stuart Maconie is one of Britain’s best known
authors and broadcasters. He hosts The Freak Zone on BBC 6Music as well
as a weekend show with Mark Radcliffe. His many non-fiction titles include Pies
and Prejudice, Cider With Roadies, Adventures on the High Teas and Long
Road From Jarrow: A journey through Britain Then and Now. His latest book
is The Full English, a revisiting of J.B. Priestley’s classic English
Journey. He is a life Vice-President of Ramblers.
SCOTLAND
Alan McCredie is a photographer and film-maker. He is the author of several books including 100 Weeks of Scotland, This Is Scotland and Scotland The Dreich. He has collaborated on many more, including Snapshot by Daniel Gray and My Scotland with his RBQ team-mate Val McDermid. He is also a guest lecturer in Photography at Edinburgh College. He is married with two children and is a Perthshire lad lost to the post-industrial wilds of Leith, which he is very happy about.
Val McDermid is a broadcaster and writer known as the queen of
crime. A former journalist originally hailing from Kirkcaldy, her novels
include The
Skeleton Road, The Wire In The Blood, A Place of Execution
and Broken Ground. Her Karen Pirie novels have now been
adapted for a major ITV series, and her most recent bestseller is Past Lying, a Karen Pirie investigation.
