Virtual Pub Quiz is the hottest trending now

Your local boozer might be shut but the pub quiz lives on, with everyone from Helen Mirren to Stephen Fry asking the questions LONDON - Much of the world is in lockdown, there's a killer virus on the loose, but right now there's only one question that needs answering: who was Madonna's first husband?

Half the faces on the computer screen look blank, but other people start writing, and the quiz master moves onto the next round. The weekly pub quiz is a fixture of life for many Brits -- an opportunity to drink with their friends and show off their knowledge of largely useless facts.

The pubs are now shut because of the coronavirus outbreak, but with everybody stuck at home, quizzers are now doing virtual pub quiz "It's pure escapism for an hour or so," said Dan March, who used to run pub quizzes and now holds one a week for friends via the online videoconference service Zoom.

Since our sofas became the buzziest nightspot in town, pub quizzes have captured our imaginations as ways to bond across the internet with friends and family. And cultural figures have not failed to notice their popularity, with podcasts, theatres and celebrities setting up their own digital versions. Stephen Fry, Jo Brand and the brains behind QI are now hosting a regular version for Riverside Studios. You can fund an anti-hunger charity by doing a picture round with the ex-frontman of the Stranglers, have the comedian Ed Gamble ask you trivia that’s been compiled by a jewellery brand, or take part in a massive, fancy-dress recreation of Only Connect organised by Stevie Martin and Tessa Coates of the Nobody Panic podcast.

The comically budget version of Victoria Coren Mitchell’s show that they put on - renamed “Nobody Connect” for copyright reasons - saw them completely overwhelmed by people flocking to answer questions via Zoom. They might have had an upturned tent serving as the show’s customary blue background and one of the hosts confusingly dressed as Richard Osman (“Stevie’s never seen Only Connect”), but they wound up having to turn people away. “We were like: ‘Maybe six people will come,’” laughs Coates. “It ended up being one in, one out: for an online quiz!” Last week, The Covid Arms attempted to break the Guinness world record for most visitors to a virtual pub. Chosen format? A quiz that saw the likes of Russell Howard, Nish Kumar and The Chase’s Jenny Ryan running rounds.

On the National Theatre’s quiz stream, the people merrily saying hello in the live chat hail from as far afield as Australia, India, Germany and Croatia. Quizzers have turned out in their droves to watch Helen Mirren sitting in her bedroom, reading out questions about history. It is also hard not to note that she has a slightly wonky bedside lamp. Or that Lesley Manville has artfully tilted her camera up so you can’t see her bedspread. Given that your quizmaster is in a different location, these events also offer the chance to be a total cheat, if you want to. “But what would be the point?” asks Paul Roberts, the ex-Stranglers frontman, whose Indy-House Pub Quiz sees around 100 teams congregate via Zoom to answer trivia questions interspersed with the odd musical interlude where people dance around their living rooms to songs such as Johnny Cash’s Ring of Fire.

“If you’re sitting at home making up things to win a prize, would you feel good the next day? These events are about the coming together; they’ve been driven by popular demand. It’s people working at their best.” As the National Theatre quiz comes to an end, participants really seem to be having fun with the format. Commenters are mock-quibbling over how many points they’re entitled to.

Even Lenny Henry is enjoying joking around with the format. It’s not often that pub quiz hosts reveal their own answers in a shrill tone of shock that suggests they’ve never seen them before. Or exclaim: “HOW COULD THAT BE?” in response to their facts. But then pub quizzes are rarely delivered by knights of the realm across the internet to an entirely house-bound audience. Our times aren’t normal, so neither, increasingly, are our pub quizzes.