Alan Davies

Stephen Fry's QI to move to BBC1

BBC2's Stephen Fry-hosted comedy panel show QI is set to move to BBC1 for its new series.

The show, which sees panellists such as Alan Davies competing to provide the most interesting answer to obscure trivia questions, is one of BBC2's most watched programmes, hitting 4.8 million viewers in November - the channel's third highest rating of 2007.

Discussions are currently taking place within the BBC about the move, which is expected to be given the green light soon.

"It is only natural when a show becomes so popular to look at taking it to a wider audience but nothing is confirmed yet," a BBC spokeswoman said.

Alan Davies stars as Jack the dog, observing Sarah (Claire Goose), her clothes, her little ways, all with the ironic devotion of a really clever pet. Sarah has a boyfriend, Adrian (Darren Boyd), on whom Jack is not at all keen. She also has an annoying mother (Deborah Norton). We can hear Jack's inner thoughts. No one else can. By Graeme Garden, from an original idea by the late Debbie Barham.

This week brought a poignant reminder of this tradition with the broadcast of About a Dog (Radio 4), the realisation of the last project proposed by comedy writer Debbie Barham before her death, at 26, from anorexia last year. She knew all about the different perceptions of men and women where comedy is concerned, mailing her early manuscripts into editors for consideration using her initials rather than her first name so as to bypass likely prejudice.

Barham began sending sketches and jokes into radio at 14, and despite writing to great acclaim for television, retained her love of radio's unique comic possibilities. This short series about a dog's-eye view of the human world, scripted by Graeme Garden, suits the medium perfectly and avoids the anthropomorphic schmaltz that visuals would bring to it. The result is a very affectionate tribute to Barham, and one you immediately sense has been a labour of love. It's also superb, gentle comedy in its own right, with Alan Davies excelling as Jack, the four-legged friend who always sounds at least mildly put out and bewildered by human foolishness.

While he can't understand sexual foreplay ("I just trot up," he says, "give it a quick sniff and murmur, 'stand still a minute'. That usually does the trick"), he has learned that eating his mistress's dinner from the kitchen worktop isn't a popular move. So he licks it instead. "I can never remember if I like olives," he slobbers, sampling her pizza topping. "No, don't like olives. Actually, that pizza looks better for a bit of a lick - what they call a glaze."

About a Dog (6.30pm, Radio 4), starring Alan Davies and Kate Ashfield, was written by Graeme Garden, based on notes left by Debbie Barham, the talented young comedy writer who died last year. Davies is the mutt Jack (I imagine he'd look like Dougal off The Magic Roundabout); Ashfield is his mistress, Sarah. Jack is as happy as a dog with two d***s until Sarah and her boyfriend decide to move in together.

Any ad-libbed, improvised show requires a special skill from the players, and in a professional sense they are living dangerously. There was an occasion in Just a Minute when the subject was snapshots. Kenneth Williams was unhappy about one of my decisions, which went against him on this subject, and he began to harass me. Peter Jones and Derek Nimmo joined in, which added to the pressure. In an effort to bring them to order, I said: "I'm sorry Kenneth, you were deviating from snapshots, you were well away from snapshots. It is with Peter, snopshots, er snipshots, er snopshits . . . snop . . . snaps." The audience roared with laughter. I added: "I'm not going to repeat the subject. I think you know it . . . and I think I may have finished my career in radio."

QI, however much it tries to be subtly different, is part of a glorious tradition. When radio first presented panel shows they cast them from those with a proven intellectual background. This mold was broken in the early 1960s, when Jimmy Edwards devised a programme for the Home Service, with himself as chairman, called Does the Team Think?. The panellists were all well-known comedians, Tommy Trinder, Cyril Fletcher and others, who proved that comics were just as intelligent as academics, and usually much funnier.

QI is a direct descendant. And when you have Stephen Fry, and contestants such as Alan Davies, Hugh Laurie and Danny Baker, and a producer of the calibre of John Lloyd, the BBC must be on to a winner.