Two Cockermouth quiz fiends are set to appear as a team on the BBC show Pointless.

Zena Bergmann and Jacqui Gavin have been friends for 10 years, brought together by their love of quizzing. They attend the Kirkgate Quiz on a regular basis.

The pair took part in filming in London last September and will appear in shows on Thursday and Friday this week. They were two of more than 30,000 people that applied to take part in the series.

"If you get through the audition, you are invited to filming. About 2,000 potential contestants countrywide get to this stage, of which only 1,200 people make it on to TV," said Jacqui, a self-employed humanitarian logistician who works for RPS Partnership, a training company based in Ireby.

"It has been quite a wait as we filmed on the Pointless set in September 2019 at Elstree Studios. Elstree, north of London, is home of The Crown, Strictly Come Dancing, Eastenders and the site of the legendary George Lucas stage where Star Wars was filmed," said Zena, a customer service representative at Futamura in Wigton.

She went through a similar process in 2015, when she appeared on Channel 4’s 15 to 1, finishing third in the second episode.

Four shows of Pointless are usually filmed a day. "The presenters, Alexander Armstrong and Richard Osman, were great sports and very professional for what must be a very tiring day," said Jacqui.

"We arrived at the studio at 7.30am. The production team went through all the show rules, checked out various dress options supplied by the contestants and then puts everyone through hair and make-up.

"At 10am the first audience arrives, the first set of contestants then gets selected to go through for filming. You wait and watch contestants coming out as they don’t get through the various game stages and wait to see who wins that show. Then it starts all over again for show two.

“It is quite nerve wracking when you are under the lights, in front of cameras and a studio audience, but it was a fantastic and enjoyable experience and great to meet Alexander and Richard,” said Zena.

Jacqui said: "In the past I have been on the ground delivering aid to earthquake and cyclone survivors which was pretty scary at times but I had no idea how intense the Pointless experience was going to be – or how shiny my nose would get under the lights – they had to keep stopping filming to powder me."

Their lips are sealed as to how they did. The episodes in which they feature are due to air on BBC1 at 5.15pm on Thursday and Friday.