Knowitalls
television series
Knowitalls is a British quiz show hosted by Gyles Brandreth. It was shown on BBC Two in 2009.
Filming took place between 15 and 21 June 2009. It was first broadcast on 27 July 2009. The show's strapline is that it's "the quiz without questions". The team that wins overall will win £15,000, the Knowitalls trophy and the title of "Britain's Biggest Knowitalls".
Overview
Introduction
At the beginning of the show, before the title sequence, the 2 teams of 3 are shown locked away in separate rooms with Gyles saying in a voiceover:
"Completely on their own. Two teams with no books, no phones and no Internet. They've been given today's subjects and just one hour to pool everything they know before they try to prove that they are today's Knowitalls."
Experts
Each show has three experts sitting on a desk at one end of the studio. Each expert has their own specialist subject.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Knowitalls” is television series. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Knowitalls, television and series, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “television series” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6423232. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2009.
Titles can refer to several editions, objects or performances, making precise identification essential before interpretation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.
- Identifying works and editions
- Tracing reception history
- Finding collection records
The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Knowitalls”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Knowitalls primary sources, Knowitalls archive and Knowitalls research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Knowitalls”?
- Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
- Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Knowitalls” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.