Puzzle Panel

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Puzzle Panel was a light-hearted, though cerebral BBC Radio 4 panel game that was broadcast between 1998 and 2005. It was written and presented by puzzle columnist for The Guardian, Chris Maslanka.

In each half-hour programme, the panellists brought along one puzzle with which to test the mental mettle of the other two panellists and their host. Essentially, it was just for fun and no points were scored. Another puzzle, the Panel Beater, was contributed by a listener. A prize was available for solving a competition puzzle.

1 Programme format
2 Panellists
3 Producers
4 External Links

[edit] Programme format

During the opening introduction, Chris Maslanka would present a few short puzzles for the listeners and panellists to work on during the course of the programme. He would then introduce the three panellists, and invite each in turn to present a puzzle to the others.

Each panellist would present a different type of puzzle. In general, one would be a numerical puzzle, one would be literal (i.e. a word puzzle) and one would be a logic puzzle.

Interwoven between these puzzles, Chris would invite the panellists to solve the puzzles from the introduction, present the Panel Beater puzzle, and read out correspondence from the listeners.

The Listener's Puzzle would be set at the end of the programme. On some occasions, this would involve a short play with the parts played by the members of the panel. A frequent theme for these plays centred around Chris playing the role of Hercule Poirot. Occasionally, Chris would play the piano, with him and the panellists singing a song, sometimes using some awful (but very well crafted) puns.

[edit] Panellists

Regular panellists have included:

Johnny Ball, mathematics populariser
David J. Bodycombe, puzzle devisor
Victor Bryant, mathematician
Geoffrey Durham, magician
Rob Eastaway, author and lecturer
Val Gilbert, Daily Telegraph crossword editor
William Hartston, newspaper columnist
Paul Lamford, Backgammon champion and writer
Don Manley, crossword writer
Prof. Angela Newing, research scientist
Prof. David Singmaster, mathematician and puzzle collector

Other panellists have included:

Prof. Marcus du Sautoy, mathematician and presenter of BBC4's Mind Games
Richard Vranch PhD., performer

In the last two programmes of the 2005 series, a couple of listeners were invited to join the panel. Programme 5's guest was a regular Panel Beater contributor, and programme 6's guest was a listener who regularly answered the Listener's Puzzle correctly.