Sandi Toksvig

One of tonight's quite interesting facts is that all the guest celebs in Stephen Fry's quizzing kaleidoscope are female, with Radio 4 presenter Susan Calman, TV perennial Liza Tarbuck and actor/comedian/antiques buff Sandi Toksvig ready to subject themselves to a surreal grilling. Will regular Alan Davies be able to keep his end up as the only male on the receiving end of tonight's posers? Of course he will, with bells on.

Radio Times review

The QI arena is buzzing tonight. Sometimes you get the feeling everyone on the panel is simply enjoying themselves and the show's lovely meandering jollity quickly becomes infectious. On the panel we have Radio 4 regular Susan Calman, Sandi Toksvig and Liza Tarbuck, plus an in-form Alan Davies, who breaks into even more of those whimsical little mimes he likes doing than usual - a randy spider, a kayak being surprised by a trawler, and so on.

But there's fascination aplenty too as we learn about the tall tales of cinnamon salesmen, ultra-hot chillies and female weightlifters. Plus the urgent and surreal question: why would German soldiers have abnormally large breasts?

Who doesn't need a good wimbrel around the madcap edges of life every now and again? I didn't know I'd forgotten how good Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer could be until House Of Fools came up and slapped me round the kippers with its sheer intoxicating daftness.

The best thing is that, while middle-aged men pratting about like students and cracking gags involving body parts could easily come across as tragic, it just seems appropriately Vic and Bob, like the past 20 years never happened. Just when I was about to send my pointy stick off for recycling, Reeves and Mortimer got good again.

Well, they've never actually been bad, but House Of Fools revealed how they footled around with quiz shows for far too long. I know it's a minority view but I was glad they axed Shooting Stars, it was a show rapidly disappearing down its own plughole.

Sticking with aquatic imagery, you could take a bubble bath in Vic and Bob's luxuriant language, a surreal Jacuzzi of absurdity, filth, poetry and celebrity invocations, often in the same sentence. That the name Sandi Toksvig played a pivotal plot role in episode one gives you the drift.

Oh, yes, plot. For what it's worth, it's poor old Bob being beset by clueless chumps and the odd offspring who clutter up his house and his love life. Mortimer is the perfect fall guy, forever fiddling with his maverick toupee while Reeves gets wedged between walls and has his bits tortured. Not forgetting Matt (Toast) Berry dressed as a regency fop and rolling fol-de-rols round his tongue.

House Of Fools revels in references to forensic pets and psychic cutlery, and comes with bizarrely erotic animated sequences. In one, Vic demonstrated an unusual way of egesting a television.

And there are questions you won't hear anywhere else: 'Why is it always you that suffers from sausage drift?' Yes, they're back.

Adam Hills and Sandi Toksvig to host revived 15 to 1

Adam Hills will host four celebrity specials of the classic quiz show while Sandi Toksvig takes over for a run of 20 daytime episodes.

Radio Times review

QI loves to stray towards the saucepot at the best of times, let alone when the episode theme is "Kinky". So tonight's episode is not recommended for the prudish, covering as it does electrically assisted kissing, sex with pigeons and a boy who got a certain body part trapped between powerful magnets. And that's the stuff we can print.

At one point Fry uses super-saturated sodium acetate and exothermic nucleation (apparently) to make instant crystals into a rude shape, while Johnny Vegas sings the theme from The Snowman. It's one of the oddest sequences you'll see on television, ever. Also steering through the smut are Sandi Toksvig and Janet Street-Porter.

Extract: Sandi Toksvig's new book on manners

How does one eat peas politely? Which innocent gesture might offend in South America? And what was Confucius's golden rule at dinner? In this extract from her new book, Peas and Queues: The Minefield of Modern manners, Sandi Toskvig reveals all.

QI's trademark blend of improving silliness is in full flow, as the teams absorb (or occasionally, recall) obscure facts on the subject in hand - inventions. It's a rich seam: jerry cans, electric jock straps ("Why have they gone out of fashion?" wonders Jeremy Clarkson), ear-dryers, windscreen wipers, and so on. In the section on the Slinky spring-toy, each panelist gets a mini-staircase and their own Slinky to experiment with, though Alan Davies is almost wilfully hopeless with his, and Sandi Toksvig wants to keep the staircase to reach shelves in her kitchen.

It's all as amiable and informative as ever: Toksvig tells us that it was a woman who invented both the windscreen wiper and the rear-view mirror. Clarkson has no comment.

TV needs more female personalities, says Sandi Toksvig

Sandi Toksvig says programme environments such as Mock the Week don't lend themselves to females who are not aggressive.

Amnesty Secret Comedy Podcast episode 4

Recorded live at the Edinburgh fringe, the latest edition of the Amnesty podcast features standup from Eric Lampaert, Nish Kumar and an improvised rap from Abandoman. Plus chat, revelations and secrets from Sandi Toksvig, QI's creator John Lloyd and Lucy Porter. Hosted by Christian O'Connell.