TV review: Ireland's Smartest — this is a proper tricky quiz from the get-go

But there's no money and no prestige in this quiz show

Claire Byrne, the host of Ireland's Smartest on RTÉ.

Do you know the type of rotating star that Jocelyn Bell Burnell observed in 1967?

Then you’ll get a kick out of Ireland’s Smartest (RTÉ One, Sunday and RTÉ Player.) And you’ll be in a minority. And you’ll probably know the size of that minority.

Because Ireland’s Smartest is ‘the pinnacle of quizzing’ in the country, according to presenter Claire Byrne on last Sunday’s second episode.

Here is a show dripping in its own self-importance. (In the first episode, Claire Byrne told us that contestants are in search of a title that money can’t buy — Ireland’s Smartest. She did this with a straight face, which was quite an achievement.) In fairness, this is a proper tricky quiz from the get-go. It isn’t long before the three contestants — Niall, Eliza and Darragh — are fielding questions about opera and Greek Gods and it gets harder from there.

In the second round, Eliza is fielding a question about the electro-sensory organs in sharks. I haven’t a clue, but one of the options is Langer, which seems like a wink to viewers from Cork. (Eliza picks the right option, ‘Lorenzini’ in case you’re ever asked yourself.) If this was a wink to Cork viewers, it was the only light-hearted moment of the night. Claire Byrne is friendly, in the way that a right-on-but-awkward Maths teacher is friendly to her pupils.

Ireland's Smartest: contestants Niall, Eliza and Darragh

The show is supposed to have the gravity of University Challenge, but Byrne lacks Jeremy Paxman’s arched eyebrows pantomime villain presence. Ireland’s Smartest also lacks the juiciness of posh kids not knowing stuff that you get on University Challenge.

What it has is the stars of the Irish quizzing scene. Niall coaches pupils in quiz art, Eliza also started on the quiz scene in school, Darragh likes being asked questions in pubs. This sub-species of life in Ireland was lovingly portrayed in Trivia, a proper RTÉ sitcom from the 2010s.

There is none of that levity here. It’s missing the Blankety Blank cheque book and pen, the crap prize from the 1980s quiz show hosted by Terry Wogan, which told us that 'it’s just a bit of telly, there is no need to take it so seriously'.

There’s no gravity either though — unless you really want Claire Byrne to say you’re the smartest person in Ireland because you’re good at an old quiz.

In the end, Eliza progressed to the semi-finals after quick-fire round that had as much suspense as a Spanish weather forecast in July. Niall was told he might get through as a high-scoring loser, but no one seemed to mind that much.

There just isn’t anything at stake. There’s no money or prestige, despite Claire Byrne’s claim at the top of the show that this is the Big One. The studio audience is kept out of shot, when they could have been put behind the contestants to heap on the pressure.

The whole thing feels like it doesn’t really matter. And it knows it.