The Lamb & Ledger in Nether Puddlingham has appointed a resident analyst to review every round of its Thursday quiz for quality of disagreement, in a change locals describe as overdue and one visitor described as the reason she now drives to a different village.

The analyst, Mr Corin Bexley, sits at a corner table with a clipboard and scores each exchange between the teams on structure, escalation and whether anybody thought to say the word "actually" before conceding. His verdicts are read aloud between rounds by the landlord, Mr Dev Pankhurst, who said the pub had fallen behind.

"People would just tell you their answer now. Straight out. No discussion, no outrage, nothing to film," Mr Pankhurst said. "The village deserves better arguments than that."

The new rules

Under the revised format, a team that states its answer before the dispute has been filmed forfeits the points for that question, regardless of whether the answer is correct. A team may recover the points by staging a disagreement retroactively, provided two members disagree on camera and Mr Bexley rules the disagreement genuine.

The Losing Ducks, last winter's champions, lost the picture round on Thursday after answering instantly and in unison. Their captain, Mrs Fenella Doyle, called the ruling a disgrace, then paused and asked whether the ruling could be repeated from another angle for her sister-in-law, who had arrived late and missed it.

Mr Bexley declined to grade her outburst, saying it was "derivative of a stronger one from the music round".

The Lamb & Ledger introduced the analyst after a general knowledge round in the spring ended without incident. Mr Pankhurst said the silence that followed had unsettled regulars, several of whom had opened their phones and found nothing happening in the room to record.

What happens next

The format expands next month with a wildcard round in which teams are scored entirely on their response to losing the wildcard round. Mr Pankhurst has also commissioned a second analyst, to sit in the public bar and grade Mr Bexley's grading.

Mr Bexley welcomed the appointment, saying the room had needed someone to review the reviewer for some time. He asked that his remarks be considered a position, not an answer, and therefore ineligible to be wrong.

The Losing Ducks finished third. Mrs Doyle disputed the standings, then withdrew the dispute after confirming it had been filmed from both sides of the table.