Can I Improve My Memory?
Contents |
Host
Michael Buerk (pilot)
Co-hosts
Memory experts:
Mark Channon (pilot)
Ed Cooke and Dr Tharaka Gunarathne
Broadcast
Avalon Factual for Channel 4, 22 March 2019 to 5 August 2021 (pilot + 4 episodes in 1 series)
Synopsis
Celebrities have become experts in unlikely topics they know nothing about, using various techniques to aid the memory. A quiz on the specialist topics - and on a classic "random objects" challenge - determines the winner.
The participants are tutored in various techniques to improve long-term and short-term memory. Visualisation is key, the most ludicrous image will stick in your memory, when raw facts might slide away.
Other techniques include the "memory palace" - associate things with a familiar environment; and the "memory cloakroom" - remember ordered lists by forming an association with a number. Short-term memory might be aided by making up a story, or narrating through the scene.
The competition was a spur to help concentrate the celebrities' minds, and prove how well they had mastered their task. Can I Improve My Memory? could have worked without the contest, but would have been drier and more didactic. While we viewers are learning from the show, we're having good fun on the way.
A moderately-successful pilot in 2019 led to a full series, which aired in summer 2021.
Participants
Pilot: Gok Wan, Valerie Singleton, Joey Essex
Series: Len Goodman, Nina Wadia, Chris Eubank, Anna Richardson, Amber Gill (from Love Island)
Theme music
John Lemke, credited for "Music".
Trivia
Mark Channon was the memory expert for the pilot, he had previously worked on Monkhouse's Memory Masters.
The series was mostly filmed at The Law Society building.
