Fifteen to One
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40 free Fifteen to One trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Fifteen to One, often written 15 to 1, was the teatime quiz that took no prisoners. Fifteen contestants stood behind numbered lecterns, each with three lives, and a wrong answer or two could send anyone home within minutes. It ran on Channel 4 from 1988 to 2003 and returned for a second life between 2013 and 2019. This quiz covers the whole story: how the rounds and scoring worked, the hosts and the people behind the scenes, record-breaking finals, champions who became familiar faces on other quiz shows, and the odd moments that made headlines. It is pitched for anyone who remembers watching in the afternoon with a cup of tea, and for quiz fans who want to know how Britain's toughest general knowledge show earned its reputation.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Why did Fifteen to One's producers abolish the live studio audience after the first three series?
They whispered the answers
They whispered the answers audibly once too often, so the audience was scrapped. Later applause was pre-recorded, and the only real spectators were knocked-out players and a few guests.
Q 02Which television producer hosted Fifteen to One for its entire original run from 1988 to 2003?
William G. Stewart
William G. Stewart meant to front only the pilot until a permanent host could be found. He ended up asking the questions for all 35 series.
Q 03Which comedian, a former chair of Radio 4's The News Quiz, hosted Fifteen to One's daytime revival?
Sandi Toksvig
Sandi Toksvig fronted all ten revival series, each episode running an hour instead of the original half-hour.
Q 04Which Australian comedian presented the 2013 celebrity special that brought Fifteen to One back to British television?
Adam Hills
Adam Hills fronted the one-off as part of a weekend of programmes devoted to the 1980s. British viewers know him best from The Last Leg, which he began hosting in 2012.
Q 05Which later BBC quiz stood its contestants in a semicircle of podiums, a layout Fifteen to One had used first?
The Weakest Link
The Weakest Link arrived in 2000 with a similar curved line-up. By then the older quiz had been numbering its lecterns 1 to 15 for twelve years.
Q 06Which treasures did Fifteen to One's original host campaign to send home, joking he would lecture on them mid-show?
Elgin Marbles
The Elgin Marbles were his great cause: he wanted them returned to Greece. He joked that if too few players survived round one, he would fill the time with a talk on them.
Q 07Which game show alternated with Fifteen to One in the Channel 4 schedule until 1996?
Countdown
Countdown and the quiz took turns in the schedule for eight years before running side by side. Countdown was also the very first programme the channel ever broadcast.
Q 08What kind of prize did the series champion of the original Fifteen to One usually take home?
A classical artefact
A classical artefact, such as an ancient Greek vase, went to each series winner. Nothing at all was awarded for winning an ordinary episode.
Q 09In round two of Fifteen to One, what did a correct answer allow a contestant to do next?
Nominate a rival
Nominate a rival and they had to take the next question: a miss cost them a life, while a right answer handed them the power to choose.
Q 10What mishap during a 1995 Fifteen to One recording meant a whole set of questions had to be scrapped?
The host dropped his cards
The host dropped his cards while explaining the rules of round one, so the questions could not be used. One contestant that day, Ingram Wilcox, later won a million-pound quiz jackpot.
Q 11Which comedian and former psychiatric nurse won the 2013 celebrity special of Fifteen to One for charity?
Jo Brand
Jo Brand outlasted the other famous faces in a one-off special watched by 1.64 million viewers. Its success led to a full daytime revival the following year.
Q 12Daphne Fowler, twice a Fifteen to One series champion, later became a regular on which BBC quiz?
Eggheads
Eggheads signed her as one of its original quiz champions in 2003. On Fifteen to One she once answered all 40 final questions correctly yet missed the maximum score by one point.
Q 13What is the maximum possible score in a Fifteen to One final, achieved only once, by Bill McKaig?
433
433 is 400 for all forty answers, 30 for three unspent lives in the final and 3 for lives kept through the earlier rounds. McKaig managed it in 1999.
Q 21The 1999 Millennium Quiz of Fifteen to One, which brought back 25 past players, aired on which holiday?
Christmas Day
Christmas Day viewers saw a contest where lives only mattered in the final round. Before that, players began on 100 points, gaining 10 for a right answer and losing 5 for a miss.
Q 22Why was the contestant at position four edited out of Fifteen to One's Grand Final shown in December 2000?
For legal reasons
For legal reasons the player could not be identified, so the camera jumped from position 3 straight to position 5. The contestant went out in round one, so the rest ran as normal.
Q 23At which British holiday camp chain did Fifteen to One's original host work before his television career began?
Butlins
Q 14Bill McKaig, the only Fifteen to One contestant to record a perfect final score, worked in which profession?
Church minister
A church minister from Scotland, McKaig got all 40 final questions right without losing a life. His two beaten opponents were invited back, a rare exception to the rule barring losers.
Q 15Laura Calland, who married Fifteen to One's original host in 1997, performed which role on the programme?
Voice-over artist
Voice-over artist Calland introduced the show from its fourth series and stepped in front of the camera at Grand Finals to hand the champion the prize.
Q 16Trevor Montague was sued by Fifteen to One's makers in 1998 after sneaking back onto the show by what means?
Using a false name
Using a false name, Steve Romana, and a disguise, he returned in 1992 despite the ban on beaten players. A viewer spotted the likeness during a repeat and tipped off the channel.
Q 17Roughly how many questions had been asked on Fifteen to One when its original run ended after 2,265 shows?
About 350,000
About 350,000 questions had been put to 33,975 contestants across 35 series, figures the host read out himself on the final show.
Q 18In which Scottish city was the revived Fifteen to One recorded from its second series, at the BBC's Pacific Quay?
Glasgow
Glasgow hosted nine of the ten daytime revival series at BBC Pacific Quay. Only the first was taped in England, at Elstree.
Q 19Which country's version of Fifteen to One, hosted by Tadeusz Sznuk, began in 1994 with only ten contestants?
Poland
Poland's version, whose title means One Out of Ten, is the second longest-running quiz show in the country's television history.
Q 20Which quizzer, later a record-breaking Mastermind champion, won the third series of Fifteen to One in 1989?
Kevin Ashman
Kevin Ashman's series win was his first major television quiz success. A decade later he came back and beat 24 former players in the show's Millennium Quiz.
Butlins took him on as a redcoat at its Pwllheli camp in 1958, after industrial action stopped him from joining the Merchant Navy.
Q 24Which Liverpool comedian won a holiday-camp talent contest organised by Fifteen to One's future host?
Jimmy Tarbuck
Jimmy Tarbuck was a teenager when he won, and the victory set him on the road to stand-up comedy and a long career fronting game shows of his own.
Q 25Fifteen to One's original host produced which 1970s Sid James sitcom, later marrying its actress Sally Geeson?
Bless This House
Bless This House cast Geeson as Sid James's daughter. She and the producer married in 1976, the year the sitcom ended, and had two children.
Q 26Before Fifteen to One, its original host produced which ITV game show fronted by Leslie Crowther from 1984?
The Price Is Right
The Price Is Right went to Crowther after he and Joe Brown each recorded a pilot episode. Its producer made the occasional cameo appearance on screen.
Q 27John M. Lewis, who devised the format of Fifteen to One, had been a sales manager at which company?
British Telecom
British Telecom was his employer when a documentary on American game shows convinced him he could do better. He posted his idea to a handful of producers, and all but one turned it down or never replied.
Q 28How were Fifteen to One contestants assigned their numbered positions, 1 to 15, before each recording?
By drawing lots
By drawing lots from a bag before videotaping. The number mattered, because questions in the first two rounds went round the semicircle in numerical order.
Q 29What did a Fifteen to One contestant have to do upon losing a final life, as the spotlight went out?
Sit down
Players had to sit down the moment they were eliminated. With the studio audience long gone, those beaten contestants were among the few people left watching in the room.
Q 30What colour were the three neon lights on each Fifteen to One lectern that showed a contestant's remaining lives?
Green
Green neon lights were one of three fixtures on every lectern, along with the player's number and a name badge that contestants in the earlier series wore themselves.