The 3rd Degree: Series 12: The BBC Radio 4 Brainy Quiz Show

A quiz show hosted by Steve Punt where a team of three university students take on a team of three of their professors

The show is recorded on location at a different University each week, and it pits three Undergraduates against three of their Professors in a genuinely original and fresh take on an academic quiz

The rounds vary between Specialist Subjects and General Knowledge, quickfire bell-and-buzzer rounds and the 'Highbrow & Lowbrow' round cunningly devised to test not only the students' knowledge of current affairs, history, languages and science, but also their Professors' awareness of television, sport, and quite possibly Justin Bieber... In addition, the Head-to-Head rounds, in which students take on their Professors in their own subjects; offer plenty of scope for mild embarrassment on both sides...

In this series, the universities are UCL, Leeds Beckett, Gonville & Caius College Cambridge, Warwick, Bangor and Lancaster.

Production Credits
Devised & produced by David Tyler
Hosted by Steve Punt

Episode 1
This episode of The 3rd Degree is brought to you from University College London. The specialist subjects are Biochemical Engineering, Psychology and English Literature and the questions range from Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway to Willy Wonka's Timothée Chalamet and the answers include the words yttrium, walla and quinquereme.

Episode 2
This episode of The 3rd Degree is brought to you from Leeds Beckett University, the specialist subjects are Journalism, English Literature and Sport and Exercise Science, and the questions range from whey powder and NIBs to Y2K and CQD. And, guaranteed, an interesting fact about Basildon.

Episode 3
This episode of The 3rd Degree is brought to you from Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, the specialist subjects are Physics, Economics and History, and the answers involve the isotropy of the universe, pre-war Poland's relation to the Gold Standard and a song about sausage rolls.

Episode 4
This episode of The 3rd Degree is brought to you from the University of Warwick, the specialist subjects are Maths and Statistics, Linguistics and Engineering, and the questions range from Kartvelian Languages and Prismatic Actuators to Yellow Submarines and Vanessa Shanessa Jenkin.

Episode 5
This episode of The 3rd Degree is brought to you from Bangor University, the specialist subjects are Education, Film Studies and Zoology with Herpetology, and the questions range from the Miracle at Cana to the sex life of Komodo Dragons. And you can play along to the well-known game, Name Five Famous Spaniards.

Episode 6
This episode of The 3rd Degree is brought to you from Lancaster University, where the specialist subjects are English Literature, Marketing and French, and the questions range from Les Immortels and Roland Barthes to shopping trolleys and Philip K Dick...

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4: 20th June - 25th July 2022

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