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Tony Robinson as Baldrick in Blackadder the Third in 1990.
Tony Robinson as Baldrick in Blackadder the Third in 1990. Photograph: Victor Watts/Rex/Shutterstock
Tony Robinson as Baldrick in Blackadder the Third in 1990. Photograph: Victor Watts/Rex/Shutterstock

From Baldrick to trainspotting composers: the Observer's culture quiz

This article is more than 3 years old

Test your arts knowledge with these questions from our critics

  1. 1.Who or what is Roderick Jaynes?
  2. 2.In which country were the oldest known oil paintings made?
  3. 3.“Do you ask a car crash for another take? Do you ask a volcano for another take? Do you ask the storm for another take?” Which actor said this about directors who asked him to repeat his performance?
  4. 4.Which soon-to-be star had a tiny role in the 1951 Ealing Comedy The Lavender Hill Mob?
  5. 5.In pre-streaming days, many millions would gather around a beloved TV series for its final bow, and in 1993 84.4 million Americans settled to watch Diane’s return to Cheers, making it the second most watched series finale in US history. But what was No 1 in last-ever episodes, with 105.9 million viewers?
  6. 6.Whose first symphony, premiered in 1931, was called the Afro-American Symphony?
  7. 7.Children sing and dance as a virtual choir to Starship’s Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now, an uplifting and doubtless heartwarming minute-long advert that has been warming our cockles since mid-May and which only a grumpy walnut of a cynic would decry as over-twee and 58 seconds overlong. It is dedicated by the sponsor to “everyone in the UK having fun despite the challenging times”. But who is this selfless advertiser?
  8. 8.The paint tube was invented in 1841. What did artists use to carry paint before it?
  9. 9.Who once said of their band’s greatest hit, released in 1981: “It’s the best song I’ve ever written. It’s a proper song like the kind that Earth, Wind and Fire or Abba would write”?
  10. 10.Before which production did actors toss a coin to see who would play the two leading roles?
  11. 11.Which composer was an avid trainspotter with a penchant for chatting to train drivers?
  12. 12.Everyone’s favourite Baldrick is, of course, Blackadder’s dung-gatherer, as portrayed by Tony Robinson, although the 9th-century Duke of Friuli and (of course) Baldric of Dol, the 11th-century abbot of Bourgueil, must run him close: and there is too a Tower of London raven with this name. But what is, or was, a baldric?
  13. 13.Which of these architects was shot by a vengeful husband at Madison Square Garden?
  14. 14.Which dramatist did Bernard Shaw dub “the Tussaud Laureate”?
  15. 15.George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, Roy Orbison: name the fifth member of the Traveling Wilburys.
  16. 16.In Cameron Crowe’s 2000 movie Almost Famous, the singer of fictitious group Stillwater famously declares “I’m a golden god!” Which real life rock star actually said it?
  17. 17.Finneas O’Connell is the producer for which multiple-Grammy-award-winning pop singer?
  18. 18.Who designed Liverpool’s Roman Catholic cathedral?
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