Quizzy Rascals: A tour of Torbay’s best pub quizzes

Which city has the most pubs per square mile?

That was the final question at the Thursday night pub quiz at The Old Manor Inn, Galmpton.

This weekly quiz has 40 general questions, with a bottle of house wine for first place. But then comes Question 41 – the jackpot round. Get it right, and you win all the cash in the pot from team entry money, which can build up to a hefty sum over several weeks.

The Old Manor also runs a Sunday music quiz. Like many pubs, it uses themed events to bring in punters on quieter nights and encourage locals through the doors in the off-season. With reports of a pub closing every week nationwide – and publicans making just 12p profit on a pint – the question of how we support our locals is more pressing than ever. Just look at Torbay’s own closures, like the once thriving Hole-in-the-Wall.

In the name of research (and purely for Torbay Weekly readers, of course) I toured the Bay’s quizzes. I found more than 20 running regularly between Brixham and Watcombe. The real draw isn’t always the quiz itself – it’s the social side, with most teams making a night of it by eating first, drinking during the questions, and catching up with friends.

Most quizzes have about six rounds of varying difficulty. Only The Old Manor offered significant prizes: wine for first, a £10 pub voucher for second, and chocolates for third. Landlord Jonathan Smith, who sets the questions, told me some teams aim for second or third place as they see more value than the wine. He enjoys writing the questions, tailoring them to regulars’ tastes – mainly 70s and 80s music – which explains the groans whenever a 21st-century question appears.

Tim Herbert, who runs the Crown and Sceptre quiz in St Marychurch every Wednesday, admitted:

“It is quite a commitment. You have to come up with at least 60 questions each week – and people will inevitably question your answers. I once did a round from The Chase, taking questions straight from the show. One player got irate because he thought the show had it wrong. Fortunately, the quiz master is always right…”

His quiz sticks to a traditional format, with mixed rounds and a maximum team size of six.

If you fancy something different, try the Monday night quiz at the Babbacombe Inn on the Downs. Run by Nick Barton since 2013, it uses iPads, awarding points not only for correct answers but also for speed. On my visit, our team often knew the answer but was too slow pressing the button. It’s hugely popular, with 19 teams that night – mostly locals embracing the high-tech twist. Prizes were modest: one team won sweets, another £6 cashback.

For something more challenging, the Kents pub in Wellswood hosts a Sunday night quiz for ‘serious quizzers’ and has been doing so for decades. I’ve found it tougher than most, with teams who look like they’ve been perfecting their specialist subjects for years.

The busiest quiz was at the Chelston Manor Inn, held on the first Tuesday of the month. There’s no entry fee, but donations for Rowcroft Hospice are encouraged. The night I visited, there were 26 teams – so many that extra rooms and even the garden were needed.

Run by Nicola Opie and Al Dunn, the quiz mixes things up with rounds like TV theme tunes, or What the Duck?, where a word in a song is replaced with a duck quack. My favourite was the ‘reverse round’, where a song played backwards had to be identified. We won overall – though only because the top-scoring team was disqualified for having too many players.

Team size limits and phone bans are common across all the quizzes I visited – though I have seen people make suspiciously quick trips to the loo mid-round.

Overall, the atmosphere is warm and welcoming wherever you go. Some nights you get lucky with the questions, other nights you don’t – but there’s always next week.

And in case you were wondering, St Albans holds the title for most pubs per square mile. I knew it because I’d read it in the paper that week – which netted our team £240 to split between the four of us. Sometimes, a pub quiz can be both a great night out and surprisingly profitable.

Favourite local pub quiz team names

• Quizteamer Aguilera

• Norfolk ’n’ Chance

• Goldilocks and the Unbearables

• Quizzy Rascal

• All the gear, no idea

• It’s Quizzzzzzzmas

• Quizzical Pursuit

• I thought this was speed-dating