QI

Everything 'fell apart' for John Lloyd, the TV producer, when he had a midlife crisis. Out of it came a new vision of life and the TV show QI.

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.

The QI equation for an enriched IQ

In the QI edition of The Idler, Lloyd and Mitchinson present a five-point manifesto for educational reform. The points are: One: play not work. Two: follow the chain of curiosity. Three: you decide. Four: no theory without practice. Five: you never leave. Read the article for further explanation.

Q.I.: The B series DVD review

Rhys is very good at Trivial Pursuit and pub quizzes. Who else could we ask to review QI for us?

...QI is a teeth-clenching example of TV mistaking shallow cleverness for intelligence.

Everything you think you know is wrong

A book review of The Book of General Ignorance. "Imagine Jeopardy with Stephen Colbert as host, with Steve Martin and Ellen DeGeneres as guests, working off a game board loaded with unanswerable questions."

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.

Any ad-libbed, improvised show requires a special skill from the players, and in a professional sense they are living dangerously. There was an occasion in Just a Minute when the subject was snapshots. Kenneth Williams was unhappy about one of my decisions, which went against him on this subject, and he began to harass me. Peter Jones and Derek Nimmo joined in, which added to the pressure. In an effort to bring them to order, I said: "I'm sorry Kenneth, you were deviating from snapshots, you were well away from snapshots. It is with Peter, snopshots, er snipshots, er snopshits . . . snop . . . snaps." The audience roared with laughter. I added: "I'm not going to repeat the subject. I think you know it . . . and I think I may have finished my career in radio."

QI, however much it tries to be subtly different, is part of a glorious tradition. When radio first presented panel shows they cast them from those with a proven intellectual background. This mold was broken in the early 1960s, when Jimmy Edwards devised a programme for the Home Service, with himself as chairman, called Does the Team Think?. The panellists were all well-known comedians, Tommy Trinder, Cyril Fletcher and others, who proved that comics were just as intelligent as academics, and usually much funnier.

QI is a direct descendant. And when you have Stephen Fry, and contestants such as Alan Davies, Hugh Laurie and Danny Baker, and a producer of the calibre of John Lloyd, the BBC must be on to a winner.