''Child Genius'' is a British
reality competition
Reality television is a genre of television programming that documents purportedly unscripted real-life situations, often starring unfamiliar people rather than professional actors. Reality television emerged as a distinct genre in the early 19 ...
series produced by
Wall to Wall Media
Wall to Wall Media, part of Warner Bros. Television Studios UK (formerly Shed Media Group), is an independent television production company that produces event specials and drama, factual entertainment, science and history programmes for broad ...
, broadcast on
Channel 4. There have been six series, one broadcast each year since 2013, except 2018.
Description
The show involves a group of
child prodigies
A child prodigy is defined in psychology research literature as a person under the age of ten who produces meaningful output in some domain at the level of an adult expert. The term is also applied more broadly to young people who are extraor ...
competing a series of tasks to gain the title of ''child genius''. Simon Blair acted as quizmaster for the first three series and since 2016, the role has been taken by
Richard Osman, who also acts as presenter. Alongside the quizmaster, Olivia van der Werff acts as independent adjudicator and they are joined by an expert in the round's subject.
Celebrity editions
In October 2016, a celebrity edition aired on Channel 4 as part of ''
Stand Up to Cancer UK
Stand Up to Cancer (SU2C) is the UK version of Stand Up to Cancer, a US charitable television telethon, broadcast between 2012-2018 on the Channel 4 network in the United Kingdom, and again from 2020. The most recent edition of the telethon was o ...
''. Celebrities who took part were
Aisling Bea,
Alan Carr,
Rachel Riley and
Krishnan Guru-Murthy.
In December 2017, another celebrity edition was aired as a Christmas Special. The celebrities who took part were
Janet Street-Porter
Janet Vera Street-Porter (''née'' Bull; born 27 December 1946) is an English broadcaster, journalist, writer, and media personality. She began her career as a fashion writer and columnist at the ''Daily Mail'' and was later appointed fashion e ...
, Dom Joly, Cathy Newman and Rob Delaney.
Despite the absence of the series in 2018, an annual Christmas celebrity edition was aired in December. Celebrities who took part were Shazia Mirza, Rick Edwards, Charlotte Hawkins and Jimmy Carr.
References
External links
Official websiteSpectator reviewWall to Wall MediaBBC News
2013 British television series debuts
2010s British reality television series
Channel 4 reality television shows
English-language television shows
Television series about children
Television series by Warner Bros. Television Studios
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