John Lloyd (I)

Dan Schreiber: The idiot elf arrives at the Fringe

Dan Schreiber is one of the QI elves to which Stephen Fry often refers on the popular BBC panel show, helping dig up the trivia and misconceptions that form the heart of the show. But you might now that already if you're a QI fan, because Schreiber is also one of the regulars on the show's spin-off podcast that launched earlier this year, No Such Thing As Fish. Schreiber also works with QI creator John Lloyd on the radio show The Museum Of Curiosity, a programme he helped conceive and co-produces.

John Lloyd's "blood runs cold" over Rolf Harris sketch

The writer and TV producer John Lloyd has said it "makes his blood run cold" to look back on a comedy sketch from 1980 that shows young children being abducted and put in a BBC van bound for a children's TV show hosted by Rolf Harris.

John Lloyd: The people in charge haven't got a clue

Here's the difficulty. The people in charge of television haven't actually made any television. Most of them haven't produced, directed, written, edited, designed or acted in a single programme. This is not a BBC problem. It's endemic to the whole of television, not just here but all over the world.

The South Bank Show: John Lloyd, Sky Arts 1, review

Lloyd can talk brilliantly and cogently. His recollection of his early triumphs was fascinating, as were his views on creativity - "All that it takes to do stuff well is persistence," he said, dismissing the virtue of talent. "There is one reason why great work happens and that is effort."

John Lloyd: BBC satire W1A was 'appallingly truthful'

"I called Jon Plowman [the producer] to tell him how brilliant W1A was but also how painful it is to see something so appallingly truthful, not only at the BBC but in general. Painfully funny, too. It's so embarrassing you want to cry."

Latex doesn't age well. Yet at 30, Spitting Image is a better-looking corpse than you might imagine, as this fascinating documentary makes clear. Pulling in 15 million viewers at its peak ("More people than it took to elect the Tories," notes former producer John Lloyd), its detractors weren't so much politicians, who welcomed the publicity, as fellow satirists. Sneered Evening Standard cartoonist Jak of its early efforts: "They should take one in 10 of its scriptwriters out and shoot them."

Could a show as cutting as Spitting Image be made today

Some people say that Spitting Image wouldn't work today because our politicians are too bland and samey, but I don't think that's true, says producer John Lloyd.

John Lloyd: TV is lacking satire

Comedy producer John Lloyd has said he does not believe any of the television programmes broadcast in the UK today are truly satirical. But Ian Hislop, the editor of Private Eye, said Lloyd is being "unduly pessimistic".

Radio Times review

Mental health issues are no laughing matter. Or are they? Julia Sutherland talks to four more funny people - Australian comedian Felicity Ward, actress Keara Murphy, performer Juliet Burton and comedy guru John Lloyd - about their experiences of depression, anxiety, psychosis and eating disorders.

While these chats are quite straight-faced, they are interspersed with clips of Ward, Murphy and Burton performing in Edinburgh, each using their bleakest moments to raise laughs.

My favourite line is from Ward who likens admitting you're seeing a therapist to saying you've just bought a slave - people are happy you're getting help, but there's still a stigma attached. Murphy's amateur radio ham from a remote corner of Scotland is an oddball delight, with some homespun advice on coping with depression.

Burton's charming tales of fulfilling her childhood dreams by stalking Prince Harry soon descend into an attempt to recreate the experience of psychosis, while Lloyd asserts it's essential to laugh at mental health issues and reveals that it was creating QI that helped raise him from a deep depression.

Part of a Changing Minds season on mental health, this manages to be both funny and informative - which is no mean feat.