QI Series F, Episode 9 Recording Review

It was quite an achievement in the end that anyone was there to review this recording. Applause store is hard enough to get tickets out of and at this stage in the series the production lists are pretty much fully booked now.

Having taken my seat the warm-up soon got underway. Stephen Grant is still touring with his Edinburgh previews so enter Ben Norris again. His performance is too repetitive for the regulars but some of the jokes are still good (the panda joke continues to get a very big laugh). Stephen Grant will be back for the last two recordings next week.

As usual Stephen Fry walked onto the set to huge applause and sat down in his seat to give his usual introduction. It is at this point that I should explain that my guest at recording this week was Tom Scott. He is possibly someone that the readers of the QI blog will be familiar with. He co-founded the official website for the UK leg of International Talk Like a Pirate Day. Indeed he has recently been elected to the post of the Student Union President at the University of York - mainly by virtue of the fact that he campaigned as his pirate alter ego Mad Cap'n Tom. However, his greatest association with QI comes from a video that he made last December in which he attempts to remove his fingerprints using a pineapple because it was something claimed on QI in the last series. Having delivered his usual introduction, Stephen declared that we had a very important person in the room "Tom Scott, where are you?"

Tom was of course rather surprised, I had only told him that he would be able to come about 6 hours before the recording when he was still in York. Stephen quickly explained Tom's video to the audience and his attempts to remove his fingerprints. Tom explained how the experiment had failed and then it was time to introduce the guests so time for the spoilers:

The guests this week were Clive Anderson, Rich Hall and newcomer Reginald D Hunter. The topic of the night was fashion, so whilst the set had not been decorated with anything special for this show, Alan was wearing a very chique outfit. The topics discussed included; haircuts, engagements, the Duke of Wellington, trousers, head wear, bollocks, canals, macaroni, month, Michelin and balls.

Justin Pollard had invited his friend - a Romanian mathematician - to come to the show and bring a rather remarkable object with him. You'll have to watch it in the autumn to find out what that item was. At the start of the show the panelists were given the task of picking a catch phrase that they will attempt to popularise by repeating through out the recording. Alan went with "Has your mother sold her mangle", Clive Anderson decided to use "Who are you?", Rich chose "Dumber than a bag of wet mice" and Reginald used one from back home "Do what you do best". It's recommended that you try to start using them now so that you're ahead of the game when all your friends are repeating them after the episode airs.

That's my last recording review this series, Mandibles returns next week with a rather special review. She will be heading behind the scenes to get a closer look at how the show is produced.