Harrison Whitaker, 27, is being hailed as one of the cleverest contestants ever after getting eight out of nine starter-for-ten questions right on Monday night’s show, including a tie-breaker on John Keats’s poetry.
He buzzed to answer questions on a wide range of topics, from 3D printing and Richard II to the 1966 Thomas Pynchon novel The Crying of Lot 49 and the French philosopher Jean-Francois Lyotard.
In earlier rounds he also put in an impressive performance, helping his team Darwin College, Cambridge, beat Birkbeck College, London, Edinburgh University and University College London — the latter by 225 points to 120.
His performance in that match was so spectacular that host Amol Rajan said of the American: “Harrison, you were absolutely on fire there.”
Impressed producers have offered him a role as a researcher and question writer for future series of the long-running BBC Two show.
Harrison, who comes from Indiana in the US, began his PhD in film at Cambridge in 2021 after studying at Columbia University, New York.
While at Cambridge he competed in the British Student Quizzing Championships and his team won twice. His extensive knowledge and fast buzzer action helped his team this week beat Bristol University, taki...
He buzzed to answer questions on a wide range of topics, from 3D printing and Richard II to the 1966 Thomas Pynchon novel The Crying of Lot 49 and the French philosopher Jean-Francois Lyotard.
In earlier rounds he also put in an impressive performance, helping his team Darwin College, Cambridge, beat Birkbeck College, London, Edinburgh University and University College London — the latter by 225 points to 120.
His performance in that match was so spectacular that host Amol Rajan said of the American: “Harrison, you were absolutely on fire there.”
Impressed producers have offered him a role as a researcher and question writer for future series of the long-running BBC Two show.
Harrison, who comes from Indiana in the US, began his PhD in film at Cambridge in 2021 after studying at Columbia University, New York.
While at Cambridge he competed in the British Student Quizzing Championships and his team won twice. His extensive knowledge and fast buzzer action helped his team this week beat Bristol University, taki...
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Daily Express (Digital) - 1 Issue, March 26, 2025