Quite Interesting, better known simply as QI, is a British comedy panel game television quiz show created and produced by John Lloyd, hosted by Stephen Fry, and featuring permanent panellist Alan Davies. To present, 51 guest panellists have appeared on QI. It is shown on BBC Two. Syndicated episodes of previous series are shown on Dave. QI has the highest viewing figures for any show on BBC Four and Dave.^[1][2] From series "F" the show is to move to BBC One.^[3]

It is distinguished by the awarding of points not necessarily for correct answers, but rather, for interesting ones. Many of the questions are extremely obscure, making it unlikely that the correct answer will be given. Points are deducted from a panellist who gives an obvious but wrong answer, typically one that is generally accepted as true but is, in fact, false.

Format and conception

The panel consists of four panellists: three rotating and one regular, Alan Davies, who has the seat to Stephen Fry's right. Davies has appeared in every episode, except for one that was themed on "Divination": he was present at the beginning, but "teleported" away during the buzzer demonstration. He was at a football match instead but was still able to play as communicated "from beyond."^[4] He has only won six times: since he generally offers up most of the "obvious but wrong" answers, he usually finishes last. The show's other panellists mainly come from a stand-up comedy background, although there have also been guests from other fields, including Richard E. Grant, Jeremy Clarkson, Gyles Brandreth and Roger McGough.^[5][6][7]

Stephen Fry hosting QI in Series A.

Questions are sometimes misleading or very difficult. Providing an "obvious but wrong" answer results in a sequence of klaxons. In the first and second series, Fry produced the answer on a card to show the panellists, while it also flashed on the large screens behind them (except in the pilot episode and the first show of the first series, when only the cards were used).^[8] In the third series and onward, Fry's answer cards were dispensed with altogether, leaving only the screens as proof that the answers given had been predicted.

Because of the show's expectation that hardly anyone would be able to give a correct answer without significant prompting, it instead encourages sheer interestingness, which is how points are mainly scored.^[9] As such, tangential discussions are encouraged, for panellists are apt to branch off into frivolous conversations, give voice to train of thought, and share humorous anecdotes from their own lives.^[9] The number of points given and taken away are normally decided by Fry or beforehand by the researchers, especially if the points given or taken are very large. For example, one episode asked, "What is the main ingredient of air?" If someone answered, "Carbon dioxide" then 3,000 points would have been deducted, but no-one gave this answer. However, Davies was deducted 10 points for saying, "Oxygen".^[10] Fry once said (namely in Episode 10 of the first season):

Now, the rules are simple. Scoring is my business. Points are given and points are taken away. They are taken away for answers which are both obvious and wrong, and they're given not so much for being correct, as for being interesting. Their level of interestingness is impartially determined by a demographically selected customer-service focus consultancy, broken down by age and sex ? i.e. me. Because there is no-one more broken down by age and sex.^[11]

John Lloyd, QIs creator, has admitted that not even he has any idea on how the scoring system works, but there is someone who is paid to check on the scores. Guests are allowed the right of appeal if they believe their score is wrong, but no-one has done this so far.^[9]

Buzzers

Each of the panel has a buzzer, with the sounds of all four often being based along some sort of theme. They are demonstrated at the beginning of the programme, but are sometimes changed in some way for repeated use. Davies's buzzer usually contradicts those of the other panellists in some amusing way, and has been the last to be demonstrated in every episode except for the unbroadcast pilot, in which he went first and Eddie Izzard, with a sillier buzzer, went last.^[12] In one instance in Series A, rather than a comical buzzer, Davies set off the forfeit alarm, meaning he started the show on -10 points before a question was asked.

General Ignorance

In a parody of ubiquitous general knowledge quizzes, the final round is off-topic and called "General Ignorance", focusing upon seemingly easy questions which have obvious but wrong answers. Whereas in the main rounds of the show, the panellists' use of buzzers is not usually enforced, the "General Ignorance" questions are introduced by Fry's reminder to keep "fingers on buzzers".

Due to the large number of "obvious but wrong" answers, panellists usually incur the greatest point losses in this round. In the second series' Christmas episode, Davies stated his refusal to participate in General Ignorance, saying that he "will not be humiliated at Christmas". In response, Fry offered to switch places with him, to the delight of the audience. Despite the seeming spontaneity of the swap, it was undoubtedly planned (at least on the part of Davies and the producers), as evidenced by the fact that Davies, in turn, produced his own set of questions on loose-leaf paper (most of which he directed at Fry), and also by the photographs and obvious-answer graphics which accompanied Davies's questions. At the end of the show, Fry announced that the game's loser was, in fact, Fry himself, as a result of his falling into many of Davies's traps.^[13]

Extra tasks

In some episodes, the panellists are given an extra task to complete during the course of the game. Those who do the best are often awarded extra points. Past tasks have included drawing contests (in which John Sessions has shown a particular talent);^[14] or looking for a specific hidden thing over the course of the show, such as a squirrel or a cuttlefish.^[15][16] Panellists were also once given a card covered with magnetic letters with which to create words over the course of one show. Jimmy Carr successfully used all of his letters to create, "Put Smarties tubes on cats legs, make them walk like a robot."^[17] In the fifth series, series E, all the episodes have the same extra task ? "The Elephant in the Room". In each episode, at least one of the answers is related to elephants, the panellists being required to wave an elephant on a stick when they believe it is the appropriate moment.

Production

Writer and former BBC producer John Lloyd devised the format of the show, and it is produced by Quite Interesting Limited, an organisation set up by Lloyd. QI was originally seen as being an "Annotated Encyclopædia Britannica... the world's first non-boring encyclopædia."^[9] As a panel game, it was conceived as a radio show, with Lloyd as chairman.^[18] While developing the show with Peter Fincham and Alan Yentob, Lloyd decided that it would work better on television. The three pitched it to Lorraine Heggessey, at the time controller of BBC One. Heggessey passed on the format, opting to commission a similar panel game called Class War (which was never made). When Fincham became controller of BBC One, Lloyd pitched it to him, only to be turned down by his former collaborator. Eventually he pitched it to Jane Root, then controller of BBC Two, who agreed to develop it.^[19] When it was decided that the show would air on television, Michael Palin was offered the job of chairman with Fry and Davies as captains of "clever" and "stupid" teams respectively. However, when Palin decided not to take the job, Fry stepped in, making Davies the only regular panellist, thus changing the entire format of the show.^[18] Root commissioned a pilot and a further 16 episodes after that, though budget limitations reduced the first series to 12 episodes.^[19]

Unlike many similar comedy-quiz programmes, the makers of the show insist that the answers are not given to the panellists beforehand.^[20] The panel are given a list of questions set to be asked just about an hour before the show, for preparatory purposes, but the guests are forbidden to ask for preparatory materials or other help.^[9] They do however run through a series of "warm up" questions before recording begins, but this is the only assistance the panellists receive. It is known that Davies never does any preparation at all.^[9] The show uses a warm-up comedian before recording begins, credited as the Audience Wrangler. In the forthcoming series, Stephen Grant provided the warm-up for ten of the twelve episodes, and Gordon Southern did so for the other two.^[21]

Research

The research for the show is mostly carried out by seven people called the QI Elves, a team which currently includes Justin Pollard and Vitali Vitaliev^[22] and previously included Molly Oldfield, daughter of the musician Mike Oldfield. The "elves" devise the questions, and are able to contact Stephen during the show to provide and correct information.^[23] Other people involved in researching questions and compiling the scripts are John Mitchinson and Piers Fletcher, known (along with Justin Pollard) as the Question Wranglers,^[23] whose research includes both Encyclopædia Britannica and Wikipedia.^[24] The QI website also has a large forum that currently has over 3,000 members.^[25] The forum contains several sections including the "Quite Interestrings", for general topics, the "Series Talk" section which are dedicated to different series, indicated by a letter of the alphabet, and "The Forum of General Ignorance", dedicated to things that are often misunderstood by most people. Some of the material written in the forums is used in the TV series.

Theme tune

The theme tune was composed by Howard Goodall, who has twice appeared as a panellist on the show. The theme music was originally going to be the song "Wonderful World", sung by Herman's Hermits, which was used in the unbroadcast pilot. However, the producers were forbidden the use of the song, and the DVD recording of the pilot now uses the theme music composed by Goodall.^[9]

QI HQ

The headquarters of QI used to be the QI Club, which is situated at 16 Turl Street, Oxford, on the corner of Turl Street and Ship Street. It is a four-storey Georgian building, erected in 1785 by one Mr Priddy to provide accommodation for the scholars of Exeter College.^[26] In 1820, it became a coffee house, and between 1945?1998 was the popular Taj Mahal Indian Restaurant (with several other businesses running on different floors, together with 'Staircase 15' of Exeter). When QI took over, they bought the entire building, uniting all floors and restoring its Georgian appearance. Under QI's management the building consisted of a bookshop, a café-bar and a vodka bar, as well as a number of rooms devoted to use by the private members club.^[27] The bookshop arranged the books in whimsical, loosely defined categories that mingle fiction and non-fiction, thus meaning people came across books at random, making it more interesting.^[28] The bookshop staff were known to respond to stock suggestions made on the QI forums.^[29] The building has since been sold and reopened under the name 'The corner club' maintaining the private member's bar with minimal changes in décor but losing the ground floor book shop.

Episodes

In QI, every series is themed around a different letter of the alphabet, starting with the letter "A". Series are therefore referred to by letter rather than number. The first series started on 11 September 2003, and consisted of topics beginning with A, including a round on people called "Alan".^[11] The second series consisted of topics beginning with "B", except in two episodes, one about "Music" and one about "Colour" (both of which can be considered "Blues" episodes).^[30][31] Series D differed from the previous three as all episodes focused upon a single "D" topic. Series E and F also deal with single topics. A video podcast was also planned, but this was instead turned into a set of "Quickies" featured on the BBC homepage for QI, although are still referred to as "vodcasts" by the panellists introducing them.^[32] Two episodes have the distinction of being won by the audience: "Death", a special Halloween episode in series D and "England" in series E.

Corrections, mistakes and retractions

Although most of the answers presented on the show are correct, some have been disputed and shown to be incorrect. For example, in Series A, the show claimed that the longest animal in the world was the lion's mane jellyfish,^[33] but this was later corrected in Series C, saying that the longest animal in the world is the bootlace worm.^[34]

Members of the public and members of the QI website contact the show to correct information. The error that has attracted the most complaints to date was made in Series B, when it was claimed that the Welsh language has no word for "Blue". In fact, there is a word: "Glas".^[35] In one case, a letter was read out when another episode in Series B claimed that language spoken by children's TV characters Bill and Ben was called "Flobbadob" and was named after the sound made by creator Hilda Brabban's younger brothers having flatulent moments while in the bath.^[14] However, in Series D, Fry read out a letter written by Silas Hawkins, the son of Peter Hawkins, who provided the original voices of the characters. The letter read:

"The fart-in-the-bath story was trotted out last year in an episode of Stephen Fry's otherwise admirable quiz show QI. It (the story) first appeared some twenty years ago in a newspaper article, to which my father immediately wrote a rebuttal. It was obviously ferreted out by some BBC researcher for QI. It may be quite interesting, but in this case, it simply isn't true."^[36]

Fry then apologised and corrected the fact, saying, "Their language is called 'Oddle poddle'. 'Flobbadob' means 'Flowerpot' in Oddle poddle. I cannot believe I just said that", at which point he started laughing in disbelief.^[36]

At the end of the third series, Dara Ó Briain was deducted points for having stated, in the series before, that the triple point of water is zero degrees Celsius, an answer which earned him 2 points at the time.^[37] Viewers however, wrote in to say that the triple point of water is in fact 0.01 degrees, and so the 2 points awarded Dara in the previous series were revoked and he received a further deduction of 10 points for saying a now obvious answer. Dara humorously retorted with, "How many people sat at home watching that and said, 'It's just a comedy show, but I'm not letting that fecker get away with that!?'"^[38]

Culture

QI has stated it follows its own philosophy, which is that everything in the world, even that which appears to be the most boring, is quite interesting if looked at in the right way. The website states that:

"We live, they say, in The Information Age, yet almost none of the information we think we possess is true. Eskimos do not rub noses. The rickshaw was invented by an American. Joan of Arc was not French. Lenin was not Russian. The world is not solid, it is made of empty space and energy, and neither haggis, whisky, porridge, clan tartans nor kilts are Scottish. So we stand, silent, on a peak in Darien a vast, rolling, teeming, untrodden territory before us. QI country. Whatever is interesting we are interested in. Whatever is not interesting, we are even more interested in. Everything is interesting if looked at in the right way. At one extreme, QI is serious, intensely scientific, deeply mystical; at the other it is hilarious, silly and frothy enough to please the most indolent couch-potato."^[39]

Reception

QI has been received most positively by viewers. It is the most popular programme of any kind on BBC Four,^[40] and one of its books, The Book of General Ignorance, reached Number 1 on amazon.co.uk's best-seller list.

QI has been supported by nearly all critics. Peter Chapman said, "When the schedules seem so dumbed-down, it's a delight to encounter the brainy and articulate Stephen Fry. He excels in this format, being both scathing and generous."^[41]

Another critic, Laura Barton said, "QI and its canny coupling of Stephen Fry and Alan Davies, which manages to condense tweedy goodness, cockney charm, pub trivia and class war into one half-hour."^[42] An American critic, Liesl Schillinger described QI as, "Jeopardy with Stephen Colbert as host, with Steve Martin and Ellen DeGeneres as guests, working off a game board loaded with unanswerable questions."^[43]

Critics have questioned the way the show is edited. One critic said, "At one point in tonight's show, Fry (normally urbanity itself) yells an obscenity at Rich Hall, the result of, I guess, a long interchange between the two but, as most of it appears to have been cut out, the outburst comes out of the blue, making Fry look as if he's flipped his lid."^[44]

Awards

In 2006, Fry won the Rose d'Or for "Best Game Show Host".^[45] The British Sitcom Guide gave QI the Best Comedy Quiz Show of 2006 and Best Panel Show of 2007.^[46][47] In 2008, the series won the Royal Television Society award for "Entertainment". It was also nominated in the "Entertainment Performance" category, but lost.^[48]

QI has been nominated for four BAFTAs. Fry has been nominated for "Best Entertainment Performance" three times, in 2004, 2005 and 2007.^[49][50] John Lloyd and QI's director Ian Lorimer were nominated for the Lew Grade Award in 2005.^[49] In 2007, The Book of General Ignorance was nominated by the British Book Awards in the TV and Film Book of the Year Category.^[51]

Media releases

QI has entered a number of different media, and has seen an increasing number of tie-in DVDs and books released since 2005.

Books

UK

The QI "E" Annual 2007
Art by David Stoten

A second book, The Book of Animal Ignorance, was released in the UK (in the same hardback format) by Faber & Faber almost exactly a year after General Ignorance, on 4 October 2007. (ISBN 978-0-571-23370-0)^[57] It promised to be a "bestiary for the 21st century,"^[58] and contains almost completely new quite interesting facts.^[59] The book includes "400 diagrams and cartoons by the brilliant Ted Dewan", another Foreword by Stephen Fry and a "Forepaw" by Alan Davies.^[60]

QIs first annual, The QI "E" Annual or The QI Annual 2008 was published by Faber and Faber on 1 November 2007 (ISBN 978-0-571-23779-1).^[61] It is intended as the first of a series to continue with subsequent letters.^[62] The cover was produced by David Stoten (one of Roger Law's Spitting Image team), who also contributed to the annual's contents. The cover is very much in the style of The Beano comic (and The Bash Street Kids strip in particular), and features schoolboy caricatures of (from l to r) regular QI panellists Sean Lock, Vic Reeves, Phill Jupitus, Bill Bailey, Stephen Fry, Arthur Smith, Rob Brydon, Dara Ó Briain, Clive Anderson, Alan Davies (with Jimmy Carr as the worm in his apple), Rich Hall, David Mitchell and Jo Brand, all of whom are credited with contributing content to the annual. Other contributors include fellow QI regulars Jeremy Clarkson and Johnny Vegas, comedian Rowan Atkinson, and cartoonists Newman and Husband from Private Eye, Viz's Chris Donald, Geoff Dunbar, Ted Dewan and The Daily Telegraph's Matt.^[63] Whether 'prequel' annuals for the letters A, B, C and D will subsequently see print is as-yet unknown. Forthcoming books include The QI "F" Annual (the 2009 annual), an audio version of The Book of General Ignorance, and Advanced Banter, a follow-up to the "Ignorance" books which deals with 'quite interesting' quotations.^[64]

US

The American cover for The Book of General Ignorance

France

A French edition entitled Les autruches ne mettent pas la tête dans le sable: 200 bonnes raisons de renoncer à nos certitudes was published by Dunod on October 3, 2007. (ISBN 978-2-100-51732-9)^[69] It is released as part of Dunod's "Cult.Science"/"Oh, les Sciences!" series, which also includes titles by Robert L. Wolke, Ian Stewart and Raymond Smullyan.^[70]

DVDs

A number of DVDs related to QI have also been released, including interactive quizzes, and complete series releases.

Interactive quizzes

On 14 November 2005 an interactive QI DVD game, called QI: A Quite Interesting Game, was released by Warner Home Video. A second interactive game, QI: Strictly Come Duncing followed on the 26th November 2007, from Warner's Music division.^[71] Both games feature Stephen Fry asking questions, and then explaining the answers in full QI-mode.

Complete series releases

The Complete Series "A" DVD

Series "B" was released on 17 March 2008.^[76], while Series "C" was released on 1 September 2008.

Other media

A QI feature has appeared in BBC MindGames magazine since its fifth issue, and revolves around facts and questions in the General Ignorance-mould. On 10 February 2007, a weekly QI column began in The Telegraph newspaper. 52 columns were planned, but this has since expanded.

QI also has an official website, QI.com, which features facts, forums and other information. It also links to QIs internet show QI News, a parody news show which broadcasts "News" items about things which are "quite interesting". QI News stars Glenn Wrage and Katherine Jakeways as the newsreaders, Bob Squire and Sophie Langton.

The QI Test

The QI Test is a planned spin off version of QI planned to be broadcast on BBC Two. Created by Lloyd, Talkback Thames' Dave Morely and former QI Commercial Director Justin Gayner, The QI Test differs from QI in that it features members of the public as contestants instead of celebrities. It will also be broadcast during the daytime schedules. The series will not be hosted by Fry. A studio pilot will be recorded on November 2008. If the series is broadcast, The QI Test will be the first spin off series of a panel game.^[77]

References

External links

• Quite Interesting Ltd. homepage
• British Comedy Guide
• The Quite Interesting Society
• qi transcripts dot com - episode transcriptions
• Portal to QI at ''The Telegraph''
• QI Talk - a blog about QI
• ''QI'' on Dave

cy:QI nl:QI (quiz)