"The Big Five" (Lieliskais Piecinieks) was the first radio quiz show in Latvian history and was based on the long-running British Broadasting Corporation (BBC) quiz 'Brain of Britain' by Ainars Latkovskis (now a prominent politician) and Ivo Krumholcs, two university students who listened to Brain of Britain to improve their English-language skills.
Still presented every week by Krumholcs, The Big Five sees brainboxes from all over Latvia assembling and answering a wide range of general knowledge questions. While part of the fun certainly comes from listening to the battle for mental supremacy between the contestants, even more can be had from besting friends, family and anyone else within listening range with your own answers.
Now, that feeling can be magnified manifold with the launch of a board game version created for young people and adults.
"The Big Five board game is definitely characterized by the saying 'You didn't even know you didn't know it'"," says Krumholcs. "The biggest challenge in creating the game was not to repeat ourselves, so that the end result is 500 different questions on different topics with multiple choices. The board game gives you the opportunity to refresh your existing knowledge about Latvia and also learn something new."
The board game is published by Latvian Radio, with graphic design by Beāte Bērziņa and can be purchased in the Latvian Radio souvenir shop.
If you'd like to listen to the weekly quiz – perhaps to improve your Latvian-language skills – you'll find it online every week here and the most recent episode is below.
