{"id":278431,"date":"2026-02-03T11:39:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-03T11:39:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/278431\/"},"modified":"2026-02-03T11:39:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T11:39:10","slug":"a-boring-brain-gymkhana-and-no-irish-even-made-the-cut-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/278431\/","title":{"rendered":"A boring brain gymkhana, and no Irish even made the cut \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Boisterous backstabber Alan Carr<\/a> proved himself an erudite fibber on Celebrity Traitors and so is the perfect host for Secret Genius (Channel 4<\/a>, Sunday, Monday 9pm), a gimmicky reality series that aims to do for misunderstood brain boxes what X Factor did for Jedward \u2013 ie, make them famous whether they deserve it or not.<\/p>\n

The premise of the show is that intelligence is underrated in the world today and that many gifted people are denied the opportunity to shine. But while it is always heartening to see those who lack confidence or have been told they won\u2019t amount to much receiving a reassuring pat on the back, the actual format is 50 shades of sleep-inducing. By the end of part one, I felt as if my brain had been packed off to bed early and force-fed Ovaltine through a tube.<\/p>\n

The huge stumbling block is that watching people solve complicated puzzles simply isn\u2019t very interesting. The first crop of hopefuls vying to make it to the grand final in Oxford are confronted with an array of word challenges, mathematical teasers and a dreary challenge involving ice-cream flavours. It\u2019s like I\u2019m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here minus the bugs, but with extra consonants.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a shame the nuts and bolts of Secret Genius are such a drag because the volunteers are a likable bunch \u2013 even if it is obvious that Channel 4 has graded the applicants according to which have the best sob stories. Sports management consultant Jo has a lot going on upstairs but has major confidence issues \u2013 something a lot of Irish people might empathise with. Then there is 999 operator Ollie, who, referring to her powers of recall, says she can \u201cpull things out of my arse from nowhere\u201d.<\/p>\n

Carr is joined by Susie Dent<\/a> \u2013 a TV brainbox who will be familiar to viewers of another Channel 4 series, Countdown. Together they sit in a remote room watching the candidates \u2013 in a style reminiscent of Ant and Dec doing their unfunny candid\u2011camera thing, only less entertaining.<\/p>\n

One strange quirk is that, while this opening episode is billed as featuring competitors from \u201cthe North West\u201d (of England) and Northern Ireland, nobody from the North (of Ireland, that is) has survived the editing suite.<\/p>\n

Did any apply? Or if they did, is it that they didn\u2019t have what it takes to pull the heartstrings of Channel 4 producers? Or maybe Channel 4 just prefers to give screen time to English contestants. Whatever the reason, you don\u2019t have to be a genius to see that the Irish participants in this grey matter gymkhana have received the short end of the cerebral stick.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Boisterous backstabber Alan Carr proved himself an erudite fibber on Celebrity Traitors and so is the perfect host…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":278432,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[43212,1795,93,61,60],"class_list":{"0":"post-278431","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-alan-carr","9":"tag-channel-4","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=278431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278431\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/278432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}