THE chairman of Longparish Parish council is on a quest to be crowned Britain’s next Mastermind champion after he made it through to the semi-finals on Friday, 15 September.

Jonathan Frere, who came runner up in a Mastermind heat last year, made a comeback on Friday night, winning the latest round of the classic BBC show with 22 points.

He was followed closely by runner up Matt Jackson with 21 points.

The retired army officer chose Julius Caesar for his specialist round in which he scored 10 points, before scoring a further 12 points on general knowledge.

Cllr Frere said: “I rather enjoyed it, I felt reasonably well prepared and it was nice to travel up to Salford and stay overnight there.

“It is very exciting to be in the semi-final but very unexpected, it could have gone any way.

“It was very unusual and due to a particular circumstance they invited me back for a second go this year, but I was glad to take up the offer.”

Cllr Frere appeared on the Brain of Britain radio programme three years ago after entering “on a whim” as he enjoys listening to quizzes.

After coming second in the semi-finals of the show, cllr Frere looked to Mastermind to be the next challenge that appealed to him.

The life and work of Augustus Pitt Rivers, the “Victorian father of scientific archaeology” will be Mr Frere’s next specialist topic as he wrote a paper on him while studying archaeology at Oxford University.

The Mastermind semi-finals are yet to be filmed and could be aired in the new year. The semi-finals are made up of five contestants before six finalists battle it out for the overall Mastermind title.