QI

Radio Times review

The most jaw-dropping - or ear-opening - curiosity in this episode comes from Italy. Stephen Fry plays a song that sounds like a rap record, and kind of is. Except it dates from 1972 and is by an Italian comedian and singer called Adriano Celentano. What's weird about it is that the lyrics are all nonsense words chosen because they sound to Italian ears like American English. (It's called Prisencolinensinainciusol if you want to Google it...) The theme, you see, is lying and deception.

Otherwise, the lavatorial theme that has run through the "L" series is well-plumbed, not least with a diversion on an utterly bizarre Japanese "gotta go" briefcase-cum-commode.

QI facts: 77 incredible things you never knew

The ultimate book of useless trivia has been compiled by the team behind the incredible facts of the hit BBC show.

Radio Times review

It's one of those QI outings that barely feels like a quiz, more a pleasant meandering chat about this and that, as Stephen Fry, Kathy Lette and Sue Perkins discuss Suffragettes, the knock-on effects of Victorian corsets, and Fry admits he has never heard of their modern equivalent, Spanx.

Perkins is on wonderful form, not least when asked to name an Anglo-Saxon swearword, whereupon she gamely charges into the welcoming embrace of multiple klaxons (and bleeps). Elsewhere we hear the worst-ever Viking insult and the truth about history's most maligned woman, Mary Magdelene.

QI confirms special one-off show at University of Kent

A special one-off version of hit BBC TV quiz show QI is to be held at the University of Kent as part of the institution's 50th birthday celebrations. The line up will include regulars Alan Davies, Sandi Toksvig, Jo Brand and Phill Jupitus. Stephen Fry will not be present, but his place will be taken by the show's creator and producer, John Lloyd.

Radio Times review

Nothing that tonight's four panellists come up with can quite beat an aside from Stephen Fry early on where he quotes the late Christopher Hitchens to the effect that "The four most overrated things in life are lobster, champagne, anal sex and picnics."

But along the way, we get other diversions: the mating rituals of the tent cobweb spider sound like they should have been included in an episode of Life Story: the male is 100 times smaller than the female and uses two "penis legs" to mate, Fry tells us.

The theme of all this is L for love, including the wonderful-sounding Puritan tradition of "bundling" betrothed couples. It also takes us from Napoleon's mistresses to Psycho to nanny goats, which are more aptly named than you would think.

Radio Times review

Stephen Fry is absolutely lethal tonight. Partly because that's the theme of this week's show, but also because he's on fire comedically. After a lengthy dissertation about a particular marsupial's energetic but ultimately deadly sex life, he solemnly wags his finger and says, "Russell Brand take note."

Sandi Toksvig, Jason Manford and Bill Bailey join Alan Davies to try to answer questions about laptop fatalities, the perils of sugar-free confectionery, unusual duelling weapons and the possibility of taking a bullet for someone. They also learn a nifty method of extracting a cork that's dropped down inside a glass bottle using a plastic bag. How handy.

The first ever No Such Thing As A Fish Halloween Special (the QI Elves podcast) is full of delightfully spooky research topics to unravel, and is still a great listen some time later due to Halloween traditions having exceptionally strange origins. The holiday itself was once on the much less spooky May 12th, for instance, because it came before All Saints Day and that holiday did not stay in one place. But in addition to the research the chemistry on the podcast is truly starting to bloom. While it holds a lot in common with the fantastic American podcast Stuff You Missed In History Class, No Such Thing As A Fish is capitalizing heavily on its recent live show in a pub. The hosts are much quicker to dig into each other's theories and opinions than they were only a few months ago when their podcast started. Anna Ptaszynski doesn't just introduce a story about Kesha and her habit of having sex with ghosts, she teases her cohosts with the question of whether everyone knows who she is, so by the time she's read her Ke$ha ghost sex tidbit her cohosts are ready to go with riffs about mythological succubi. Stories about bobbing for apples as a way of selecting a spouse are also delightful, and perhaps most entertaining is the fact that witches once had the tradition of using the end of a broomstick to apply hallucinogenics anally, hence "flying on broomsticks." The dark facts combined with the funnier than ever pacing make this a heck of an installment.

Radio Times review

You can debate the virtues of the ideal QI guest, but this is a pretty perfect line-up. Sara Pascoe, Bill Bailey and Rev Richard Coles all have so much to chip in and riff about that the programme reaches that QI plateau where the questions feel almost like an interruption to the general flow of drollery.

Pascoe has astonishing facts about rats' love lives, Bailey objects to the phrase "the birds and the bees" on the basis that bees are "sexless lackeys for a monstrous sugar giant" and Coles ponders the uselessness of a tie rack in a vicarage. He also enlightens us on what it means to be soundly firked. That's firked.

Radio Times review

Those who were offended by the childish "poo and willies" humour of a recent QI won't be thrilled to hear mention of male and female genitalia, pubic hair and prostitution in tonight's edition. But not to tune in would mean missing some genuinely laugh-out-loud moments, including Alan Davies wearing antique glasses for those with poor peripheral vision. You'd also miss Stephen Fry apoplectic with embarrassment at having accidentally described Jo Brand as an ignorant pig. And you wouldn't know how impossible it is to twirl your right foot clockwise while trying to draw a six in the air with your right hand. Bet you're trying to do that right now.

Radio Times review

Sue Perkins appears to be taking this edition incredibly seriously, frowning as she unpicks the brainteasers and listening intently to Stephen Fry's elucidations as if she was the classroom swot thirsty for every drop of knowledge. That is until he poses the question how did Chicago get screwed up, to which she flippantly replies: "They put Catherine Zeta-Jones in it."

The lavatorial round may send you running towards the smallest room because the explanation is so nauseating even the panellists shriek in horror. But stick around for the quantum levitation demonstration. It's childishly and joyously brilliant. Josh Widdicombe's right when he says: "That would be the best Christmas present in the world!"