I went to see a talk put on by the creators of QI last night.
We went to a Dimt first (Dim sum) resaurant then on to a UCL lecture theatre near by. IT was odd going back to a university, I was the oldest in the room until a couple of old ladies turned up.
The QI creators John Lloyd and John Mitchinson were there to sell their new book (which I now have a signed copy for my Dad's Christmas present). It's basically a book of quotations (a toilet book), mostly quite funny.
The guys talked about how the series was created and various other aspects of the show plus a handful of other random bits and bobs. The openned it up to questions afterwards so I asked
Was any one else considered for the Stephen Fry role
The answer is yes. It was originally going to be Michael Palin, with Stephen as a fellow team captain pitting the toffs against the non toffs (Alan Davis). Michael Palin pulled out as he felt he wasn't intelligent enough so they asked Stephen to step in for the pilot. It worked so they kept it that way. Quite interesting really.
Afterwards we went to a nearby pub for a couple of drinks and who should turn up? The two John's with their publicists. They sat down next to us, and to cut a long story short April discussed how do you get to become a QI elf. She now has the details so we're going to certainly look into it.
All in all a successful evening. We must look into doing more like it.
My people call me the dude. I share my teachings in the passages below... (along with many typos, grammatical errors and lazy writing)
What's a QI Elf? you mean like in the audience or working on the show?
ReplyDeleteLove the show - would like to have done that evening m'self
As a researcher. They're called elves. I think it'd be pretty cool for a year or so. I doubt the pay's that good though.
ReplyDeleteThe tickets were £3 each.
Wish I'd known. Ive got a question I wanted asked.
ReplyDeleteI can't imagine anyone else managing the trick of being erudite (I know its all on the cards) without sounding abrasively know-it-all-ish. For eg John Sessions...probably much much cleverer but he'd never manage to be anything other than horribly smug.
Oh..ps
ReplyDeleteElves....
Just re-reading the Santaland Diaries by David Sedaris. Funnily Markus introduced me to him. (not personally).
He's a writer who once spent a christmas working as an Elf in Maceys in NY. Its a short story/diary of that time and very very funny.