Clive Myrie has been branded “unfair”, “harsh”, and a “stickler” following his decision to disallow one contestant’s seemingly acceptable answer during Monday’s show.

During the episode, the BBC News star welcomed four new budding quizzers into the hot-seat for another round of intense quizzing.

They included Meg Tapp, a social media specialist who specialised in the musical Evita, and Ben Abbott, a teacher whose specialist subject was the history of Hereford Cathedral.

They were joined by fellow quizzers Elizabeth Rounding, a study abroad coordinator whose expertise was in the works of Sally Rooney, and IT manager Alan McDermaid, who faced questions about the Spanish golfer, Seve Ballesteros.

After round one, in which each of the contestants faced teasers about their chosen categories, Ms Tapp was in last place with eight, Mr Abbott and Ms Rounding were tied on nine, and Mr McDermaid took the lead with 11.

Ms Tapp was once again first up for the general knowledge round and put up a respectable score of 19.

Unfortunately for her, she was soon trumped by Mr Abbott, who nudged past her score by racking up a total of 20 in the hot-seat.

Mr Abbott remained in the lead after Ms Rounding took on the general knowledge round. She only managed to score a total of 15 across the two sets of questions.

With a place in the semi-finals up for grabs, Mr McDermaid had to surpass Mr Abbott’s score of 20, meaning he needed 10 correct answers to sail through or nine to go to a tiebreak.

He rattled through the first few questions to get his score to 13 before stumbling on a few tricky brainteasers. He eventually regained momentum, however, and racked up a score of 18 with time still to spare.

As the seconds whittled away, Mr Myrie asked: “In which Shakespeare play is Titania, the Queen of the Fairies, attended to by other fairies named Peaseblossom, Cobweb, Moth, and Mustardseed?”

“Midsummer’s Night’s Dream,” Mr McDermaid answered, prompting a blunt My Myrie to reply: “No, A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

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Mr McDermaid got his next question correct but was unable to rightly answer the final brainteaser of the round, meaning he ended up on a score of 19, just one point behind Mr Abbott.

Mr Myrie bid him farewell soon after, and while he acknowledged it was “an incredibly tight finish”, he avoided mentioning the disallowing of Mr McDermaid’s Shakespeare answer.

Mr Abbott soaked in the glory as he shared his thoughts with the BBC cameras at the end of the show, but by that point, hordes of Mastermind viewers had already taken to social media.

Before long, X was awash with complaints from fans outraged by Mr Myrie’s decision to disallow Mr McDermaid’s Shakespeare answer, especially as it ultimately cost him a spot in the semi-finals.

“Poor chap! He should’ve been allowed the Midsummer Night’s Dream answer. #Mastermind,” one viewer fumed before a second weighed in: “#Mastermind Should be a steward’s inquiry into Midsummer’s Night Dream. He was robbed.”

A third took aim at Mr Myrie: “#Mastermind Is it just me or is denying him a point for that Shakespeare answer, very poor form from Clive?”

“#Mastermind Clive not allowing Midsummer Night has probably cost that man a place in the next round. That was so wrong,” a fourth concurred before a fifth similarly raged: “Very harsh @CliveMyrieBBC on #Mastermind… ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ You could see the confusion on the poor contestant’s face.”

A sixth kept the complaints coming: “How very unfair to be such a stickler over an answer that most people would consider correct. And by then repeating the title to correct the ‘erroneous’ answer, crucial time was lost that would have allowed at least one other question that might have led to a tie. #mastermind.”

Elsewhere, another shared: “SO unfair on #Mastermind, not allowing the Shakespeare answer, that only had an apostrophe wrong! Yet Clive allowed another answer (re Ballesteros?) as just ‘Lytham’ when the full answer was ‘Royal Lytham & St Anne’s Golf Club’!!! A lot more wrong with that! Alan should appeal.”

And an eighth also hit out at Mr Myrie: “That was wrong of Clive to not give him Midsummer’s Night’s Dream. Clive looked like he enjoyed the correction as well #mastermind.” (sic)