QI E05 Recording Review

*This is episode E10 in the Autumn transmission order.

It finally happened! Episode five of series E was the episode with the 50th guest (finally a new person in the series). Read on to find out who it was (it was a special person too).

I didn't get a good look at the queue last night so I can't tell you how many failed to get in. I was amazed that Loose Women turned away some people though!

Gordon Southern was Stephen Grant's replacement last night. His performance was good and it's nice for the regulars to get a different performance (but we missed Stephen). The audience was suitably warmed up for the show.

A few things that may interest you (they wont be in the final cut). The audience was filled with guests from a school that Fry has been doing a documentary with. Also, the brother and sister of Douglas Adams (a good friend of the producer John Lloyd before he passed away) were sat in the audience.

Stephen Fry has revealed that he is taking Zyban, not as an antidepressant but to help him quit smoking. However, he said that it was having some interesting results with regards to his manic depression.

Lets get straight into the spoilers. As always, highlight the text if you want to read it, otherwise scroll down to the end for some Quite Exciting News. The first paragraph includes details of the guests.

The guests for Episode 5 of Series E were Sean Lock, Phill Jupitus and Charlie Higson. Higson is QI's 50th guest excluding the pilot and Alan Davies. For those that remember, Higson was the plasterer to whom Fry referred to in a story about himself and Mr Hugh Laurie in a previous episode. Charlie certainly produced a good performance in the show. All of the guests hit a large number of klaxons, although Charlie recovered most of his points before the end. The large amount of audience participation in this episode continued.

The theme of the show was England (all of the guests had English flags although Alan promptly switched his at the start of the show to a Welsh flag). Subjects included; Manners, Lakes, Athelstan, 2 Fingers, Eton, Jumbo, Bestsellers, Trades, Nutters, Bedford, Bluebirds, Elizabeth I, Counties, Swans and the Oxford History of England.

The show was good, although I have to say that I felt it wasn't quite up to the par of the first 3 that I saw. That said, I blame the lights which were left on to illuminate the audience that gave me a headache. I suspect that the two best laughs in the episode may fail to make the final cut. The one about Glenn McGrath's wife may not make the cut because his wife had cancer (unknown to Stephen) and McGrath has been known to be very angry when the joke is repeated. The other about the abuse of elderly people probably contained too much unbroadcastable content and whilst it was hilarious, I couldn't help but think of the Panorama episode on the subject.

Stephen revealed that the 5th series will be accompanied by Vodcasts (he needed to do the intro and outro for them at the end of the show) containing extra content much in the same way as the Graham Norton Show uses them. That'll be another thing to look forward to in the Autumn (A whole series, a DVD, two books and now a vodcast. These QI people really are spoiling us).

I am lucky to be able to travel to London again today to see tonight's episode so come back tomorrow for the next review.