Products, Recordings and Other Updates

Quite a lot has been going on since the QI Talk blog has last been updated, so I thought it was time to give everyone the latest news.

Series G

QI's seventh series is currently being recorded. Out of the sixteen episodes to be made, seven have so far have been recorded. The details are written below in white so as not to spoil it for those waiting for them to be broadcast. Scroll over the text to read it.

Episode 1) G-Animals: With Bill Bailey, Sean Lock, Sandi Toksvig, and John Hodgman (that's right: four guests!)

Episode 2) Gravity: With Barry Humphries, Bill Bailey, and Rich Hall.

Episode 3) Gothic: With Jimmy Carr, Jack Dee and Sue Perkins.

Episode 4) Games: With Phill Jupitus, Sean Lock, and Liza Tarbuck.

Episode 5) Gifts: With Clive Anderson, Jimmy Carr, and Jan Ravens.

Episode 6) A Gallimaufry of Gingambobs: With Phill Jupitus, Hugh Dennis, and Andy Hamilton.

Episode 7) Green: With Danny Baker, Bill Bailey, and Jeremy Clarkson.

The other recordings will take place on May 26th, 28th, 29th, June 2nd, 4th, 5th, 9th, 11th, and 12th.

You can find out more information from the QI Forums and the British Comedy Guide.

The Museum of Curiosity

The second gallery of The Museum of Curiosity is currently open. The radio "spin-off" to QI, hosted by QI's creator John Lloyd (Professor of Ignorance at the University of Buckingham), now has a new curator, Sean Lock. Three episodes have been broadcast and the series is currently on the BBC iPlayer.

The Museum is also planning to expand. The people behind the show are to open a new website of the series soon, which will include a forum and podcasts, and will even allow users to donate their own exhibits.

You can listen to the new series on BBC Radio 4 on Monday evenings at 18:30, with repeats on Sundays at noon. You can follow the show on The Museum's Blog or at the British Comedy Guide.

Quite Interesting Products

Some new QI goodies are soon to be made available.

The QI Pocket Book of Animals - Following on from the pocket version of The Book of General Ignorance, a new pocket version of QI's second book, The Book of Animal Ignorance has just come out. You can buy it from Amazon and Play.

Advanced Banter (Paperback) - The paperback version of QI's book of quotations is to be published on 3 September 2009, according to Amazon and Play.

QI: The Book of the Dead - The new, fourth book published by the people behind QI to be published on 1 October 2009. Split into 42 chapters, The Book of the Dead will contain sections such as "People who died Penniless", "The One-Legged", "Only Children", "People who failed at School", "Those only Remembered by a Single Quotation" and "The Last People to Know Everything". You can pre-order the book from Amazon.

Secret Britain: The Hidden Bits of Our History: Written by Question Wrangler Justin Pollard, this is a follow up to his previous books The Interesting Bits and Charge! which look at all the quite interesting bits in the history of Britain. The book is listed on Amazon and will be released on 1 October 2009.

The QI Annual 2010: The third QI annual is currently in the making, and will feature a range of G-related topics. Contributions will come from Stephen Fry, Alan Davies, Rowan Atkinson, Jeremy Clarkson, Bill Bailey, Jo Brand, Phill Jupitus, Jimmy Carr and many more. To be released on 5th November, 2009. Per-order from Amazon.

My Favourite People, 1978-1988: Alan's first book! QI's resident panellist and stud muffin has written a memoir of his life growing up in the 1980s. You can find more information about the book here.

QI is also hoping that to make a game for the Nintendo DS, but it is not known if and when it will come out. Sadly, no details are yet known concerning DVDs of any more QI series; Series D is the next one that should be due for release.

Twitter

QI, along with several other related shows and people, is now on Twitter. For those wanting to know information about the shows as they are recorded, these links will let you know live from the scene. He is a list of some quite interesting tweets you may wish to follow.

QI - @qikipedia

The Museum of Curiosity - @Curiositwitty

QI Telegraph - @QITelegraph

Stephen Fry - @stephenfry

Alan Davies - @alandavies1

John Mitchinson - @Tewlop

Justin Pollard - @JustinPollard

Katie Scott - @katiescottscott

Dan Schreiber - @Schreiberland

Jonathan Paul Green - @jpgdesign

QI & MoC Recordings

We can announce that the G series of QI is to be extended beyond the normal run of 12 episodes to a minimum of 16. Recordings of Qi are currently scheduled to take place on the following dates at the London Studios:

May 8th, 9th, 14th, 15th, 19th, 21st, 22nd, 26th, 28th, & 29th
June 2nd, 4th, 5th, 9th, 11th & 12th

Bookings for tickets can be made via www.applausestore.com as tickets are made available.

Meanwhile the Museum of Curiosities, presented by the creator of QI John Lloyd on BBC Radio 4 will be returning for a new series later this year. John Lloyd will be joined by Sean Locke who will be tacking over from Bill Bailey as the series' co-presenter and the museum's curator. Recordings will be taking place at the BBC's Broadcasting House on Oxford Circus on the following dates:

March 30th & 31st
April 6th & 13th
May 4th & 19th

Tickets can be booked online here or by ringing 0370 901 1227.

Episode 12 & QI News

Episode 12 of QI in the F series will not be broadcast at the previously advertised time due to a clash with BBC1's Comic Relief in Red Nose Day on 13th March. It is currently unclear whether it will be broadcast in QI's old BBC2 slot or the following week on BBC1.

Meanwhile in other news, QI's move to BBC1 continues to create international interest from producers wishing to replicate the format. Following the start of the Dutch series there are now ongoing negotiations regarding the sale of the format to be shown in France. If QI is adapted to a conventional prime time format for French broadcasts it will probably be converted into a 2 hour long show.

Dutch QI episode 3 "Lust and Love"

Not content with just two people's opinions of the new Dutch QI, we decided to go a find a third one. This week The Great Prickly of Pear provides us with her opinions of the third show in the new series.

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This episode was all about "Love and Lust", with guests Claudia de Breij, Ronald Goedemond, Silvester Zwaneveld, and of course Thomas van Luyn. I think that this show was the first in the run to really shine in terms of the comedy. It hasn't only been Arthur Japin (much improved this time) that needed to get used to his role, but the guests as well. The programme has placed too much emphasis on being funny in the early shows. As a result the guests try to answer the questions by leading off with a joke. That created plenty of forfeits, but it didn't lead into much banter. This time however, the panellists tried to answer the questions directly, and the resulting klaxons led into discussions that created a much funnier show.

So this episode was funnier that the previous ones. But was it more interesting? The answer to this question is, sadly, no. Once more, about half of the questions had come from the "real" QI. That makes it less interesting for the fans who've also watched the original. Also, the panellists are not encouraged to be interesting, even if an interesting anecdote is loosely connected with the question. It is quite clear that the panelists are only expected to contribute to the laughter and not the interestingness.

There is also a problem with the way the questions are posed. The question about fans that was asked in the Christmas special was also asked during this episode of the Dutch version. The panelists were asked to show how they thought "I'm already married", for example, would look. Obviously this lead to some funny answers, but how and where and why this fan-language was invented was omitted. This difference in style really demonstrates the lack of interest that the producers pay towards the subject matter's interestingness.

However, perhaps we shouldn't be surprised that this has transpired. The original QI was born out of the rather noble ideologies of John Lloyd, whose primary concern was creating an interesting show (which was supposed to be targeted at Radio 4 before he was persuaded to put it on TV). The Dutch QI has been bought from the BBC as a comedy show; maybe we shouldn't expect the producers to aspire to anything other than that?

One final niggle is that the questions lack linguistic elegance. The writers of the original seem always to do their utmost to write beautifully, making full use of Stephen's oratory skills. However in the Dutch version the question are simple. Maybe this has something to do with the different cultures. There's no eloquence in Dutch.

But why am I complaining that the Dutch version differs from the original? Does it matter that the intro isn't the same; that it isn't as interesting; that the cards Arthur Japin has in front of him don't look as good? QI is broadcast on Nederland 1, which produces cheap viewer-ratings-conscious entertainment, although all the public channels in the Netherlands work like that. Given that environment, QI is a beacon of light in the dark ocean that we call General Ignorance.

QI F Series Broadcast Schedule

The full broadcast dates for the remainder of the F series:

16th January - Fight and Flight (Pam Ayres, Sean Lock, Johnny Vegas)

23rd January - France (Jo Brand, Hugh Dennis, Phill Jupitus)

30th January - Fakes (Marcus Brigstock, Jimmy Carr, Sean Lock)

6th February - Fingers and Fumbs (Jo Brand, Phill Jupitus, Dara O Briain)

13th February - Fashion (Clive Anderson, Rich Hall, Reginald D. Hunter)

20th February - Future (Rob Brydon, Sean Lock, Ben Miller)

27th February - Flora and Fauna (Jo Brand, Jimmy Carr, John Sergeant)

6th March - Film (David Mitchell, John Sessions, Emma Thompson)

13th March - Food (Jimmy Carr, Rich Hall, David Mitchell)