Richard Ayoade

Ayoade as Maurice Moss in The IT Crowd, playing Countdown.

Richard Ayoade was a contestant on 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown. He is an actor, writer and stand-up comedian amongst other talents.

In his most famous role as Maurice Moss on The IT Crowd, Ayoade's character "appeared" on Countdown in 2010. In the episode, Moss famously declares the nine letters TNETENNBA which already "spells" out a word, and breaks many records. Moss is later invited to a secret club called 8+ and forced to play Street Countdown against a jealous former champion, "Negative One", declaring a 16 (OVERNUMEROUSNESS) compared to Negative One's 12, ENORMOUSNESS. The episode featured cameo appearances from Jeff Stelling, Rachel Riley, and Gyles Brandreth.

He eventually made his debut appearance six years later on an actual episode on 22 October 2016 in 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown Series 11, Episode 5. For his sole apperances in 2016 and 2017, he scored three and five respectively. Remarkably the year after, in 2018, he improved dramatically, scoring perfectly in a numbers round and obtained a maximum in a letters round and maintained his performance in 2019, though he could have broken his own record had he not discarded DOGNAP (He would eventually do so almost a year later in 2020).

He is only the second player in history to have two drawn matches, after Lew Schwarz. The advent of tie-break conundrums in normal Countdown means this is unlikely to ever be beaten.

Episodes

#	Date	Type	Contestant 1	Score	Contestant 2	Presenters				Guest	Lex	Max
Cats70	22/10/2016	S	Richard Ayoade & Rob Beckett	3 – 48	Jon Richardson & Claudia Winkleman	Jimmy Carr	Rachel Riley					Adam Riches	Susie Dent	70
Cats86	6/07/2017	S	Stephen Mangan & Sean Lock	55 – 5	Richard Ayoade & Katherine Ryan	Jimmy Carr	Rachel Riley					Bill Bailey	Susie Dent	71
Cats102	17/08/2018	S	Richard Ayoade & Sean Lock	42 – 43	Jon Richardson & Jessica Knappett	Jimmy Carr	Rachel Riley					Alex Horne & the Horne Section	Susie Dent	74
Cats108	25/01/2019	S	Joe Wilkinson & Sean Lock	22 – 35	Richard Ayoade & Aisling Bea	Jimmy Carr	Rachel Riley					Tom Allen	Susie Dent	78
Cats122	23/01/2020	S	Richard Ayoade & Sean Lock	44* – 44	Jon Richardson & Katherine Ryan	Jimmy Carr	Rachel Riley					David O'Doherty	Susie Dent	87
Cats128	14/08/2020	S	Daisy May Cooper & Sean Lock	22 – 27	Richard Ayoade & Ivo Graham	Jimmy Carr	Rachel Riley					Adam Buxton	Susie Dent	71
Cats133	4/02/2021	S	Richard Ayoade & Sean Lock	42 – 52	Jon Richardson & Sara Pascoe	Jimmy Carr	Rachel Riley					Nick Helm	Susie Dent	69
Cats143	29/07/2022	S	Joe Wilkinson & Richard Ayoade	28 – 28	Jon Richardson & Lucy Beaumont	Jimmy Carr	Rachel Riley					Finlay Christie	Susie Dent	75
Cats146	19/08/2022	S	Sara Pascoe & Richard Ayoade	11 – 35	Jon Richardson & Chris McCausland	Jimmy Carr	Rachel Riley					Morgana Robinson	Susie Dent	60

* Includes 5 points from a bonus game.

External Links

• Richard Ayoade's Wikipedia page