Students were thrilled when comedian Steve Punt and renowned radio producer David Tyler came to DMU to record an episode of hit BBC Radio 4 quiz show The 3rd Degree.
DMU was chosen as a venue for the new series, in which three of our students pitted their wits against lecturers to see who came out on top.
The show, hosted by Steve Punt, of ‘Mock the Week’ and ‘Horrible Histories’ fame, is recorded on location at a different university each week. DMU was picked as one of the six venues for the new series to be broadcast in April this year, when listeners will find out whether academics or students won the day at DMU. You can see a Facebook gallery of the evening here.
The show has the underlying rigour of a formal quiz, combined with a light-hearted quest to discover how students fare against a team of their own academics, dubbed ‘the dons’.
The rounds varied between specialist and general knowledge with a quick-fire bell-and-buzzer round, and saw academics and undergraduates all put on the spot with rounds of individual questions.
Recorded in DMU’s PACE Building (Performing Arts Centre of Excellence), the programme was recorded in front of a live audience made up of more than 100 students and staff.
The 3rd Degree producer is David Tyler, for Pozzitive, whose credits include Spitting Image, Thanks a Lot Milton Jones! and Cabin Pressure. Thanks to an informal Q&A session after the show by producer David, some of DMU’s Radio Production students got to find out how a BBC programme is set-up, recorded and then broadcast to the nation.
And Demon Media students interviewed Steve Punt for their newspaper and radio station.
Student radio producer Josh Munday interviewed Steve after the show: “I am loving being at DMU! I got to interview one of my heroes. I first started listening to him on the radio when I was at school in Year 7.
“This is a massive experience to put on my profile for my radio career; I’ve just interviewed Steve Punt!”
Contestants in the quiz were three students from Contour Fashion Design, Film Studies and Forensic Science who took on three academics from the same subjects.
After the show, first-year Forensic Science student competitor Elinor Skipper, who is also chair of the DMU Forensic Science Society, and competed against Dr Audrey Matthews, said: “This has been so exciting - I wouldn’t ever have guessed I’d end up doing this whilst I was doing my degree.”
James Hinckley, who is also DJ for Demon FM’s day-time Tension show, took on one of his Film Studies lecturers Dr James Russell. After the quiz, he said:
“Lots of students were cheering us on every time we got an answer correct, it was great.
“This experience is testament to what DMU is about – it offers a lot of extra-curricular activities and this one was a laugh, really enjoyable, and now I’m going to be on national radio too.”
Second-year Contour Fashion student Megan Bunce took on her subject leader Gillian Proctor and was thrilled with the chance to be involved: “It was really good fun. I listen to Radio 4 and love the show so it was amazing that I got to take part.”
Posted on Tuesday 10 February 2015