Stephen Fry

TV Dinners: How to make ... QI

1. Hurrah! Could life get any more yummy or fluffy, it's QI, lathers Stephen Fry - the show that will be nibbling the nipples of knowledge, fondling the buttocks of braininess, and cerebrally satiating itself on the G-spot of good humour.

Stephen Fry's comedy-quiz QI has become so popular that it's transferred from BBC2 to BBC1 (a la Have I Got News For You), but otherwise it's business as usual for the comedians given schoolboy roles, with Fry as the indubitable headmaster and Alan Davies the class dunce. Tradition dictates that, as the sixth series, the trivia revolves around the letter 'F'. Of course, things aren't particularly strict, and conversations veer off into random, surreal tangents. The only disappointing thing with QI is a tendency to make smutty, schoolboy jokes usually involving sexual innuendo. There's nothing wrong with such comedy, but QI is guilty of spending far too long giggling at crudities, when the real gems of the show are to be found elsewhere.

Stephen Fry hosts as the Quite Interesting panel show returns for a new series.

Laughter's said to be the best medicine - although if that's the case, why do doctors bother with those drugs? But chortling certainly does help the brain garage store juicy facts. Countless folk have chortled at Stephen ribbing Alan's ineptitude and still been able to fire out some impressive trivia down The Stoat and Radish. Sparkling smarty-pants comedy.

All New Shooting Stars, a one-off special, was an object lesson in never going back. Vic and Bob seemed like their own fathers. The only recognisable celebrity was Jack Dee, who, with a blue tit balanced on his head, stood nose to nose with an opera singer giving Nessun Dorma plenty of welly. Any trembling or precipitation of the tit would indicate failure and cost him a beautiful pillowcase. To watch Dee crack into a smile was joy enough for one night.

A little piece of history tonight as one of Auntie's most ardently admired panel games, QI, makes the journey from BBC2 to BBC1 for its latest series.

It's not the most obviously conformist of comedies: a blend of the scintillating and the silly, an echo of Radio 4 on TV, hosted with avuncular omniscience by Stephen Fry, who puts panellists to the test with questions so arcane that points are awarded only for the most outlandish or 'quite interesting' answers (with suitably massive deductions for the incorrect or predictable).

Wit, that rarest of commodities, is the show's stock in trade and it is a marvel to behold how much is distilled on a regular basis by panellists drawn from a broad cross-section of contemporary comedy talent.

QI goes Dutch

The Netherlands is to get its own version of QI. Public broadcaster VARA has bought the rights to remake the Stephen Fry panel show, with Dutch author Arthur Japin as host. Comedian Thomas van Luyn will be the only regular guest, as Alan Davies is in the BBC version.

QI plans daytime spin-off

QI is attempting to become the first panel show to create a TV spin-off.

As the programme moves to BBC One next year, producers Talkback Thames have been commissioned to make a pilot of a sister quiz for BBC Two.

Provisionally titled The QI Test, the show is expected to fill a daytime slot and will feature members of the public rather than comedy panellists.

Stephen Fry will not be hosting the show - although no presenter has yet been named.

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.

It is surprising that this radio-TV crossover about the venality of PR folk hasn't been more successful, especially as it stars Stephen Fry and John Bird. Here the eponymous masters of spin Prentiss McCabe try to make a tabloid newspaper more successful. Go on, laugh. It won't kill you.

Sneer at trivia, and you sneer at my soul

Flick through most of the 500 channels available on television today and you will see that rule writ large. A huge majority of the programmes available are dreary, talent-free and insulting. But alight on something that treats trivia as it should be treated, with care and respect, and it becomes a real joy.

Take the recent series QI, utterly pointless and utterly irresistible. As might be expected, since it was presented by Stephen Fry, a man whose learning cannot be gainsaid, but who has the intelligence and range to observe popular culture with the critical eye it deserves. As he proves, it is possible to be a trivia elitist.