John Lloyd (II)

Audio: An interview with John Lloyd

In this episode, I chat with the legendary producer behind Not The Nine O'Clock News, Blackadder, Spitting Image and the creator of QI, John Lloyd, about awards, curiosity, creativity, and more...

General Ignorance sweeps Great Britain...

On the publication of The Second Book of General Ignorance, John Lloyd, John Mitchinson and the QI team can reveal that Britain's most generally ignorant town is ... Swindon!

Everything you need to know about what you need to know

Ignorance? You'd better get used to it. In the words of Thomas Edison, 'We don't know a millionth of one per cent about anything'.

Stories Of The Dead And Famous. And Just The Dead.

Catherine the Great wasn't really named Catherine, and she hated being called "Great." These and more intriguing facts about the dead are unearthed in John Lloyd and John Michinson's new book, The Book of the Dead.

Two things swiftly became apparent from Frost on Satire (Thursday, BBC Four). One is that people tend to lose their appetite for causing offence in middle age, and the other is that age is the cruellest satirist of all. The years have done things to the American comedian Chevy Chase's face that might even have given Gillray pause for thought. Frost too has turned from the chirpy, sneering, brilliantly deadpan comic of his youth into a rheumy, clubbable figure oozing emollience in all directions.

In a rather too relaxed, chucklingly familiar sort of way, he was trying to find out what, if any, power satire held. Not much was the gist of it, with affronts to vanity being the most palpable hits. John Lloyd, producer of Spitting Image, recalled Leon Brittan's wife once coming up to him in a state of high indignation and saying, 'Leon's only got three warts on his face and you've given him five.'

Lord Reith would be so proud. A show to entertain and inform in one ever-so-very clever package. John Lloyd cuts the ribbon to open the third level of the Museum, revealing yet more empty plinths. Filling them with their donations this week are cosmologist Marcus Chown who, frankly, made my brain bleed with his scientific proof of the afterlife, Terry Pratchett's brilliant idea of a time bank ("the minute in your pocket will never be devalued") and Shappi Khorsandi's great anti-dictator. The guests are gold dust but curator Jon Richardson is no slacker when it comes to the sliver-sharp retort. It will make you laugh as much as it will make you think. Pornography for the brain!

John Lloyd, once a BBC Light Entertainment producer (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, e.g.), now, after glittering adventures in TV and film, a don of the comedy world, returns with a new series of a recent invention. He and comedian Jon Richardson are pretend curators of an imaginary museum to which visiting celebrities tender possible new acquisitions. Tonight author Terry Pratchett brings a secret extra day of the week, cosmologist Marcus Chown has a plausible scientific theory of the afterlife and comedian Shappi Khorsandi offers Charlie Chaplin.

For the uninitiated, The Museum of Curiosity is presented by comedy producer/godlike genius John Lloyd, and he's joined by a different 'curator' each series; Bill Bailey, Sean Lock and now the brilliant Jon Richardson. Three contributors - comedians, scientists, authors, historians, generally fascinating people - donate something the museum each week, and that something can be absolutely anything, no matter how huge, tiny, fictional or dead. I won't give away what Shappi Khorsandi, Terry Pratchett and Marcus Chown ("cosmology consultant of New Scientist") gave to the museum in the episode I saw recorded, but I will say that all three spoke passionately about their donation, and that Chown's made my brain hurt for days. The series will air later in the Spring.

BBC2 continues its pattern of making a new documentary as an excuse for airing repeats, although why they're only running one classic episode of Not The Nine O'Clock News is a puzzle. Surely a show of its calibre deserves more?

But at least the tribute show actually has the original cast in it and not just a series of C-list talking heads that werent actually alive when the show was made. Stars Rowan Atkinson, Mel Smith, Griff Rhys Jones and Pamela Stephenson talk about the series that helped turn them into household names, as does producer John Lloyd.

Youd think the guy in charge would have kept his team in check but not John. Mel, Griff and I were the naughty boys, he recalls. Wed always go to the pub at lunch and Rowan would work on his scripts. Poor Rowan, the nerdy student who did his work while his mates got hammered. But at least it paved the way for him to turn into TVs ultimate dork, Mr Bean.

A painfully revealing episode of Radio 4's The Reunion in 2005 shed a bright light on some of the darker recesses of one of television's best-loved topical comedy shows. In this look back, producer and driving force John Lloyd talks again of the backbreaking effort that went into Not the Nine O'Clock News, first shown 30 years ago: "My memory was that it was a nightmare of overwork. I mean, everything was stressful. We used to be green with exhaustion." Not Again looks at a show that launched some great British comic performers, and also Richard Curtis, Clive Anderson and Andy Hamilton, who contributed to the scripts.