Brainbox Challenge

A brain training quiz in which contestants battle to prove themselves in games of memory, language, numerical, visual and spatial skills.

In each show, five different games are played, each one testing a different aspect of mental capacity. The champion is able to see their next potential opponent, and must decide whether to face them or walk away with their winnings, for failure will reduce them to their last safe level. The champion doesn't know their opponent's strengths, nor the topic of the next game.

The challenges were as follows:

• Memory
  • Symbol Solution, ten letters are replaced by shaped symbols, and words are written out with these symbols. Decode the symbols to work out a word relating to a big picture.
  • Space Hoppers, identify the word hidden in a sentence.
  • Vowel of Silence, a single word appears with all of its vowels removed.
  • Letter Link, four four-letter words appear, each with a letter missing. The same letter is missing from each word, buzz in to identify the letter.
  • Word Matrix, a set of core letters is given, and other sets of letters fly by. Identify the correct words formed by the core letters and those flying by.
• Numbers
  • Fading Figures, a set of simple sums appear on the screen, and are whisked away by a tornado. Only when the last sum has vanished can the contestants buzz in with all the correct answers.
  • Code Nine, work out the answer to a simple numbers problem. Except that each digit is coded by taking the nines compliment, and the answer is again recoded.

• • Five a Day, fruit are coded into numbers from 1 to 5. Then we see a sum involving some of the fruit, and give the numerical answer.
  • Double Trouble, see one sum, hear another, and add the two answers together.
• Memory
  • Answer Wall, twenty seconds to memorise a board of twenty answers, then match the right answer to clues Clive provides.
  • Animal Magic, see eight animal pictures, each associated with a sound it wouldn't normally make. Then see the animals again, and buzz in by naming the correct noise.
  • Total Recall, remember the order in which a sequence of things flash at you.
  • Pairs in Squares, match pairs of sounds behind numbered squares. Just five pairs to find, which generally keeps the game quite short.
• Spatial awareness
  • Third Dimension, a representation of a solid shape rotates and twists on the big screen. The aim is to work out how many faces it has.
  • Compass Confusion, see a compass, and rotate through the eight semi-cardinal points as instructed. After some questions, the compass is rotated so that north is no longer at the top.

• • Sphere and Now, two circles of rotating letters, each letter in various colours. Clive calls out a word from the left-hand sphere, and the contestants find a word on the right-hand sphere that matches the unique colour sequence.
  • Picture This, bits of the outline of an object appear on the screen, each light traces out a small fragment of the object.
  • Shaping Up, a set of ten shapes is shown. Three or four of them combine to make up one big complex shape.

The champion at the end of each show gets to play the bonus game, the Brainbox Challenge, which is a test of remembering the shape displayed two (or three) before the current one; some weeks required numbers to be remembered as well, making the challenge much harder. There's £50 per shape correctly remembered, plus a bonus of £200 for a string of sixteen correct answers, but one wrong answer will stop the game.

Combined with a string of wins in the regular game, the potential jackpot is £13,000.

The cash tree is:

Clive Anderson was the host, and very much dominated the show - he read out most of the questions, took many words to say "right", and often conducted the contestant interviews so that the player said "yes" to a statement he'd made.

Originally, this show went out at 6.30pm after Eggheads, but after three weeks of unimpressive ratings, the final week was burnt off at 1pm. It remained in the BBC archive for almost two decades, until a daytime repeat in late 2025 and early 2026. By then, we recognised a prototype Missing Vowels round from Only Connect, and some of the more simple games from The Krypton Factor's short-lived revival. Perhaps The Krypton Factor is the counter-example: there's a place on television for brain games, but they can't sustain a show on their own.

"Will you take the cheque, or take the challenge?"

"You don't win any money - you don't lose any money, but we don't give you any money."

Matt Katz and Richard Webb

Amongst the contestants were Phil Morris, who would later become the CEO of British Speedway; and Ben Justice, who went on to create such game shows as All Together Now.

BBC programme page, where many of the games from the show could be played; digital bitrot has taken the interactivity away.

Brain-Jitsu

Weaver's Week review and 2026 reassessment