We need to talk about Kevins Trivia Quiz

Answer: Musical theatre

He won two Tony awards for his roles in musicals, the second was for his portrayal of the Pirate King in Gilbert & Sullivan's "The Pirates of Penzance". This led directly to the start of his film career when a renowned director, Alan Pakula, saw the show and decided to cast Kline in a dramatic role opposite Meryl Streep in "Sophie's Choice". At the same time, Kline's outstanding performance as the Pirate King was immortalised in film - "The Pirates of Penzance" (1983) also stars Linda Ronstadt and Angela Lansbury.

He won his Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in 1989. It is rare that the honour is given to someone in a comedic role and he was up against stiff competition including River Phoenix and Alec Guinness. The Oscar was presented by Sean Connery, Roger Moore, and Michael Caine. Kevin's opening line of his acceptance speech was "There's a lot of Brits here. Scary."

Answer: Spacey

The opening quote is Kevin's own description of himself in his Twitter account biography. In 2010, Kevin Spacey was awarded one of the UK's highest honours, an honorary CBE for his services to drama. CBE stands for "Commander of the Order of the British Empire", and is the next rank down from "knight".

The Old Vic has an esteemed 200 year history but by the end of the twentieth century it had hit huge financial difficulties and the building was set to be sold to property developers. A charity was set up to raise funds to save the venue and re-open it, with the aim of returning it to its former glory. Spacey's personal and active support of this led to him being invited to join the committee.

Kevin was announced as Artistic Director in 2003. In 2004, he dedicated himself to a ten year plan which included casting high-profile American actors alongside leading British actors. He personally appeared in and/or directed at least two shows there per year.

His appointment met with scepticism and even disdain from some corners of the media and critics but, after a briefly shaky start, Kevin's artistic leadership, hands-on approach, and ceaseless fundraising, proved to be exactly what was required and by the end of his tenure of office The Old Vic was in its prime again.

Answer: A Few Good Men

Bacon plays prosecutor for the US Army, with Tom Cruise, Demi Moore, and Kevin Pollack as the three members of the maverick defence team that rattle Jack Nicholson's character enough to make him shout "You can't handle the truth".

The film was written by Aaron Sorkin who adapted it from his own original play. It was based on real events with some poetic licence taken. Sorkin's sister, a lawyer, told him about a case she became involved in at Guantanamo Bay where a group of marines almost killed a fellow marine during a "hazing" and it was suspected it had been done under a "Code Red" order from their superiors.

Kevin Pollack has acted in several films, usually playing supporting roles, including "The Whole Nine Yards" and "The Usual Suspects". He is also a chat show host, poker player, and stand-up comedian.

Kevin Bacon has a long career in film, his breakthrough role being in 1986 with "Footloose". He is married to actress Kyra Sedgwick ("The Closer"). The couple lost a considerable amount of their savings to Bernie Madoff's ponzi scheme.

Answer: Lewis

Colin Dexter's books about Inspector Morse were already best-sellers when in 1987 they began to be made as a series of stand-alone feature-length episodes for television. John Thaw played the erudite Morse, with Whately as his humble assistant detective, Lewis. Over the next 13 years, they made over 30 of these films together, with author Dexter even writing new stories for them.

In 2000, Dexter wrote the death of Morse. There would later be a prequel series called "Endeavour" as well as Lewis getting his own show. Dexter did not write the spin-offs.

With Whately playing the character Lewis, the audience has had a rare opportunity to follow a junior detective travelling through his career to inspector in real time. As Lewis has aged, so has Whately - or vice versa! The character in the original books was not a young Geordie man, as played by Whately, but a mature Welsh man at the end of his career. The characteristics of both Morse and Lewis were altered in the TV adaptations.

Answer: Dexys Midnight Runners

"Come on Eileen" was released in 1982 and was the group's second number one in the UK, becoming the UK's best selling single that year. In 1983 it took first place on the Billboard Hot 100, preventing Michael Jackson from having back-to-back number ones in the US, with "Billie Jean" and "Beat it".

Rowland co-wrote the song; Eileen was a real person, a girlfriend from his youth. He is English with Irish parents, which may explain the many Celtic references in Dexys ("Too-Rye-Ay", "Celtic Soul Brothers"). He continued writing and singing with Dexys Midnight Runners until 1987 when he started a solo career. His solo projects were not always well-received and his career stumbled until he reformed the band in 2003 for a successful tour. In 2012, he restyled his new pared-down version of the band as "Dexys" and released new work which was both critically and commercially a success.

Answer: Lionel Shriver

Shriver's birth name is Margaret-Ann Shriver. She decided to be a writer when she was 12 and changed her name to Lionel when she was just 15. She gives various responses when asked why she chose a male name, including that she preferred to be a tomboy, but most believable perhaps is that she never liked her given name.

"We Need To Talk About Kevin" was not her first book but it was by far her most successful; in fact she has sometimes referred to it as her "make or break" book as despite publishing six novels previously, and working steadily as a journalist, she was now in her forties and still largely unknown. Her characters are often unsympathetic and she writes about controversial and difficult topics - in this case, a school massacre.

"I'm often asked did something happen around the time I wrote Kevin. Did I have some revelation or transforming event? The truth is that Kevin is of a piece with my other work. There's nothing special about Kevin. The other books are good too. It just tripped over an issue that was just ripe for exploration and by some miracle found its audience." -Shriver (interview in "The Irish Times").

The book was adapted into a film in 2011 starring Tilda Swinton as Kevin's mother.

All alternative choices are instances where a female author has opted to publish under a male pseudonym: Currer Bell is the pen name of Charlotte Bronte; George Sand is the nom de plume of Amantine-Lucile-Aurore Dupin; Robert Galbraith is the alias of JK Rowling.

Answer: Computer hacking

Kevin's technical and social manipulation skills developed early on. As a teenager, his hobby was persuading telephone company employees to give him access to codes that allowed him to tap into long distance lines and make free calls. This hobby developed into trying to access business and state computers, which he mainly did for fun. He was exceptionally good at it, though, good enough to pose a threat to national security, and was the FBI's number one on their "most wanted computer criminal" list.

In 1995 he was sentenced to a prison term for his activities. His time in solitary confinement was apparently down to the fear that he was so adept at technology and at manipulating people that he could potentially launch a nuclear missile just from a payphone. He had certainly outwitted the FBI on several occasions. While he was on the run, he managed to programme state computer systems to mislead FBI agents into thinking they had traced him, and they performed a full raid on a perfectly innocent and unsuspecting citizen in a completely different city. How scary must that have been?

In 2014, Kevin claimed, and then demonstrated, that he could steal anyone's identity in just three minutes without using any hacking skills, merely by having good knowledge of how computers and security protocols work and good people skills. Luckily, he only uses his powers these days to provide security solutions to businesses.

Answer: Kevin Keegan

Before there was David Beckham there was Kevin Keegan, arguably the original soccer media sensation. He was a very skilled player, and with his trademark "poodle perm" and his advertising contracts (Brut Aftershave), in the 70s and early 80s he was not only an English soccer legend but became a media pin-up and television personality.

He played for the top teams at the top of the leagues, and when he transferred to Newcastle United he was instrumental in bringing that team into the top divisions. He also played for England in the World Cup. He retired for some years but later managed Newcastle United, once again achieving a meteoric rise through the divisions. That success meant he was asked to manage the England team, but the appointment was brief and he left citing irreconcilable differences.

Kevin Federline came to fame when he married Britney Spears after a whirlwind romance. Kevin Rudd was the Australian Prime Minister. Kevin McCarthy was an actor with a 70 year film career including the original "Invasion of the Body Snatchers", "Death of a Salesman", "Hotel" and "The Twilight Zone".

Answer: JFK

In one of his most famous roles, Kevin Costner played Jim Garrison in an Oliver Stone film based on a real story - the investigation by Garrison into a conspiracy behind the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Costner initially declined the role, (scripts were also sent to Mel Gibson and Harrison Ford). Although the film is based on Garrison's own book about the trial and investigation, and Costner met Garrison several times to prepare, viewers should be aware that some poetic licence was used by Stone and the film varies a little from actual events. The quote refers to the government's single "magic bullet" theory that Costner's character, Garrison, is asserting is impossible so should prove there must have been another shooter somewhere.

Bacon played a small role, as a messed-up male prostitute giving evidence, but it was a pivotal role in Bacon's career. Since his major success in "Footloose", Bacon had not been offered the roles he wanted and in fact he was in a bad slump and questioning his future as an actor; then his agent suggested he should change tack and start trying to play character parts rather than the lead. She suggested going for darker roles and, as she was also Oliver Stone's agent, she sent Bacon to audition for a small part in "JFK". Once Bacon had shown the world his skill as a character actor there was no looking back.

Answer: 6

At first, Bacon was not enthused by his name being used in the game, in fact he did his best to ignore it. But if you can't beat them, join them: Kevin set up a groundbreaking charity (six degrees.org) with the aim of connecting activists in many charitable causes, small or large, to celebrities that could help them. Advertisers have also been quick to join in with the game, and Bacon became the face of a commercial communications network, most hilariously in an ad where he plays several Kevins at once, each a reprisal of his most famous acting roles.

The idea of six degrees of separation was first posited in 1929 in a short story, "Chains" by Frigyes Karinthy. The theory went that every thing and person in the world is connected to any other thing or person, and that the connection can be made in a maximum of six steps. For example, you are connected to the President of the United States because I might be able to introduce you to someone (that's one step, or 'degree') who can introduce you to someone else (another degree) and so on until finally we are introduced to the someone who can introduce us to the President. And, believe it or not, you can do this in just six steps or less.

In the nineties, this theory was given widespread publicity in a play, then made into a film (starring Will Smith and Stockard Channing), "Six Degrees of Separation". Then college students began playing it as a game, with the variation that (due to his diverse roles in so many films) any movie star could be linked to Kevin Bacon in a maximum of six steps: hence it was now called " Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon". With the internet, the popular game spread quickly, and soon there was even a board game as well as a new phrase - "Bacon Number" - to denote each person's number of degrees away from Kevin. A person who worked with Bacon gets a number 1. A person who worked with that person gets the number 2, etc. What's your Bacon Number?