QI (Quite Interesting) is a British comedy panel game quiz show for television created and co-produced by John Lloyd. The series currently airs on BBC Two and is presented by Sandi Toksvig. It features permanent panellist Alan Davies and three guest panellists per episode; the panellists are mostly comedians. The series was presented by Stephen Fry from its beginning in 2003 until 2016.

The format of the show focuses on the panellists answering questions that are extremely obscure, making it unlikely that the correct answer will be given. To compensate, the panellists are awarded points not only for the correct answer, but also for interesting ones, regardless of whether they are correct or even relate to the original question, while points are deducted for "answers which are not only wrong, but pathetically obvious" – typically answers that are generally believed to be true but in fact are misconceptions. These answers, referred to as "forfeits", are usually indicated by a loud klaxon and alarm bell, flashing lights, and the incorrect answer being flashed on the video screens behind the panellists. Bonus points are sometimes awarded or deducted for challenges or incorrect references, varying from show to show. QI has a philosophy that "everything is interesting if looked at in the right way". Series G and H saw the regular show broadcast in a pre-watershed slot with the extended edition remaining within a post-watershed slot. Beginning with the I series, the regular show returned to a post-watershed slot on BBC Two. Syndicated episodes of previous series are regularly shown on Dave. In November 2020, a new compilation series titled QI XS started, with a run-time of 14 minutes per episode. A second series of XS, with an 8-minute running time, started in February 2023. Series of QI are assigned letters in sequence and episodes are themed around topics starting with that letter.

The show has received very positive ratings from critics and has been nominated for multiple awards; QI itself has the highest viewing figures for any show broadcast on BBC Two and Dave. Several books, DVDs and other tie-ins to the show have been released, and international versions of QI have been made in other countries.

Format and concept

thumb|upright=0.6|Comedian [[Alan Davies (pictured in 2007) has been a permanent QI panellist in every series.]]

The panel consists of four participants: three rotating guests and one regular, Alan Davies, who has the seat to the immediate right of the host. Davies has appeared in every episode. However, in "Divination" he was not able to appear at the studio; he was still able to play "from beyond". Despite frequent wins, Davies often finishes last due to incurring forfeits.

Questions posed to the panellists are often misleading, obscure, or very difficult. Providing an "obvious but wrong" answer (referred to as a "forfeit") results in a sequence of klaxons, alarm bells, flashing lights, and a score penalty. Davies is often the panellist who gives these answers. Starting in the third series, Fry's answer cards were dispensed with altogether, leaving only the screens as proof that such answers had been predicted.

Because the show's creators expected that hardly anyone would be able to give a correct answer without significant prompting, they instead encourage sheer "interestingness", which is how points are mainly scored. As such, tangential discussions are encouraged, and panellists are apt to branch off into frivolous conversations, give voice to trains of thought, and share humorous anecdotes from their own lives.

Negative scores are common, and occasionally even the victor's score may be negative. Score totals are announced at the conclusion of the show. Fry has said, "I think we all agree that nobody in this universe understands QI's scoring system." John Lloyd, QIs creator, has, on one occasion, admitted that not even he has any idea how the scoring system works, but there is someone who is paid to check on the scores. According to the Series A DVD, guests are allowed the right of appeal if they believe their score is wrong, but none has so far exercised that right.

General Ignorance

In a parody of ubiquitous general knowledge quizzes, the final round is off-topic and called "General Ignorance". It focuses on seemingly easy questions which have widely believed but wrong answers. Whereas in the main rounds of the show, the panellists' buzzer usage is not usually enforced, the "General Ignorance" questions are introduced by the host's reminder to keep "fingers on buzzers". "General Ignorance" was featured in every episode until the I (ninth) series, but featured only occasionally in the J (tenth) and K (eleventh) series before appearing regularly again in the L (twelfth) series. Due to the large number of "obvious but wrong" answers, panellists—especially Davies—usually incur the greatest point losses in this round.

Tasks and themes

thumb|[[Stephen Fry was the QI Master from the pilot through to Series M in 2015.|268x268px]]

In a number of episodes, either the set, the panellists' clothing, the opening theme, or a mixture of all, are changed to match the episode's theme. For example, in "Denial and Deprivation", the set was replaced with an auctioneer stand for Fry and school desks or side tables for the panellists, and the lighting was stripped down; while in "Health and Safety", the panellists wore hard hats, safety glasses, and bright yellow work vests and Fry wore a doctor's white coat and stethoscope.

In some episodes, an extra task is given to the panellists to complete during the course of an episode, which can earn them extra points. Such tasks have included a drawing contest, or spotting an item on the video screens and waving a "joker" card (e.g. Cuttlefish). Several series have had a recurring task spanning every episode, often involving the use of a joker card to respond to a question whose answer fit a specified theme. Examples include "The Elephant in the Room" (series E, elephants), "Nobody Knows" (Series I, for questions without a known answer) and "Spend a Penny" (Series L, lavatories).

In addition to assigning tasks, the host performs scientific experiments or demonstrations during certain episodes. Fry did so once an episode in the J, K and L series, where they were called "Jolly Japes", "Knick-Knakes" and "Lab Larks", respectively, and usually occurred towards the end of the episode. Such experiments either use simple objects, various chemical compounds, odd contraptions, or a mixture of all. If an experiment's outcome is too fast to be seen, a short "replay" of it is shown (sometimes with multiple angles) to reveal precisely what happened.

Production

thumb|upright|Veteran comedy producer [[John Lloyd (producer)|John Lloyd was the driving force behind QIs creation.]]

Writer and former BBC producer John Lloyd devised the format of the show, and it is produced by Quite Interesting Limited, an organisation set up by Lloyd. QI was originally seen as being an "Annotated Encyclopædia Britannica ... the world's first non-boring encyclopaedia." When it was decided that the show would air on television, Michael Palin was offered the job of chairman with Fry and Davies as captains of the "cleverclogs" and "dunderheads" teams, respectively. Root commissioned a pilot and a further 16 episodes after that, although budget limitations reduced the first series to 12 episodes. but that "it was time to move on". According to Alan Davies, Fry quit because the BBC cut the budget, so that three shows had to be recorded on the same day. "For budget reasons, they ended up making him do three shows in 24 hours", Davies said. Lloyd said that Toksvig will be "the first female host of a mainstream comedy panel show on British television", and that although she is very different from Fry, she "will bring to the show the same kind of wonderful thing that Stephen does, the mixture of real brains and a hinterland of knowledge, plus this naughty sense of humour." He also said it will give the show a chance to "do things in a slightly different way".

Recording

thumb|left|The QI panel set, seen empty in 2009, incorporates the QI logo.

Recordings usually take place over a few weeks in May or June; three episodes are typically filmed per week and sixteen are filmed for each series. Series A–P were filmed at The London Studios, with Series Q onwards being filmed at Television Centre.

In the morning on the day of recording, the studio has to be set up. Seven cameras are used to record QI. Guests may have time to practise with a set of warm-up questions. However, there have been no warm-ups for recent series. Fry recorded and tweeted audience AudioBooms and introduced the guests before the show. Recordings start at either 4:30 pm or 7:30 pm and last up to two hours, although only 30 minutes of footage is used for normal episodes and 45 minutes for "XL" episodes. By 10:00 pm, recording has usually finished and the set has been disassembled.

Questions seen beforehand

The makers of the show insist that the answers are not given to the panellists beforehand. The host is given a list of questions about an hour before the show, for preparatory purposes, but the guests are forbidden to ask for preparatory materials or other help.</blockquote>

Following this comment, people asked Fry to identify the guest and some posted their own speculations. Fry later posted on his Twitter account that it was neither Davies nor Rob Brydon. In a 2022 Q&A at the Oxford Union, regular panellist Dara Ó Briain said that the guest in question was someone who had since died, but was not Sean Lock.

Research

The research for the show is mostly carried out by seven people called the "QI Elves", a team which has included Justin Pollard, Vitali Vitaliev, The "elves" devise the questions for the show, and one is on set during filming who is able to communicate with the host during the show to provide and correct information. Other people involved in researching questions and compiling the scripts are John Mitchinson and Piers Fletcher, known (along with Justin Pollard, Molly Oldfield, and James Harkin) as the Question Wranglers, The QI website also has a forum.

A QI Elves podcast, No Such Thing as a Fish, began on 8 March 2014. The title is taken from an entry into the Oxford Encyclopedia of Underwater Life (although in the opening theme of the first 41 episodes it is incorrectly referenced as the Oxford 'Dictionary' of Underwater Life), which was used on the show. The audio from the first episode in which they discuss how they found this fact is used as an introduction. Regular elves are Anna Ptaszynski, James Harkin, Dan Schreiber, and Andrew Hunter Murray, with occasional appearances from Alex Bell and Anne Miller. Schreiber is the host of the show. Its theme song is "Wasps" from the band Emperor Yes, which is based on a fact about bees which was used on QI. The song is written as an exchange between the bees, as they defend their hive from attacking wasps by swarming the wasp, and using their body heat to kill the wasps by overheating. A TV show entitled No Such Thing as the News aired for two seasons in 2016, following a similar format based around news stories and current events. In 2018, an online behind the scenes series that followed the podcasters on their UK tour was released called 'Behind The Gills'.

Episodes

In QI, every series takes its theme from a different letter of the alphabet, starting with the letter "A". Series are referred to by letter rather than number. The first series started on 11 September 2003, and consisted of topics beginning with "A". The second series consisted of topics beginning with "B" and also saw the first attempts to pay attention to a particular theme throughout one episode, e.g. "Birds" (the over-riding theme did not necessarily begin with "B", although the questions always contained an element that did). The only exceptions to the alphabet system have been the Christmas specials, where the topics are often Christmas-based and do not necessarily correspond to that series' letter (although greater attempts have been made to do so since Series D).

Series D was the first to see all the episodes focus upon a single topic or theme, beginning with the series letter (e.g. Danger), and for each to be given an official title connected to the topic/theme. It also saw Fry modify his introduction of the panellists, by incorporating the theme/topic of the episode, with Davies often getting the "demeaning" introduction. This trend has continued with each subsequent series; episodes from previous series were retroactively given titles. A video podcast (featuring the best moments with some out-takes) was planned to accompany Series E, but this was instead turned into a set of "Quickies" featured on the QI homepage of the BBC's website. As this decision was not reached until after recording, the videos are still referred to as "vodcasts" by whoever is introducing them (usually Fry but occasionally a panellist or even the audience.) The series was ended by a special outtake compilation entitled "Elephants".

Points may be given to (or taken from) the studio audience, and six episodes have the distinction of being won by the audience: "Death", the fifth episode in Series D; "England", the 10th episode in Series E; "Flora & Fauna", the 10th episode in Series F; "Greeks", the 14th episode in Series G; "Next", the 15th episode in Series N; and "Quantity and Quality", the 15th episode in Series Q. The audience's win in "Greeks" was only announced during the XL broadcast as their contribution was cut out of the main broadcast. In contrast, the audience lost the fifth episode of Series E, "Europe", receiving a forfeit of −100 when they incorrectly sang the first stanza of the German national anthem, and the fourth episode of Series Q, “Queasy Quacks”, when they received a forfeit for referring to the first patient in a disease outbreak as Patient Zero. Several others have scored points in certain episodes by making appearances on the set or screens; these have included ASIMO (a humanoid robot) and US President Barack Obama.

A special stand-alone episode was filmed between 1:00 and 2:00&nbsp;a.m. (GMT) on 6 March 2011 as part of Comic Relief's special 24 Hour Panel People featuring David Walliams, who appeared in various old and new panel game shows throughout a 24-hour period. The shows were streamed live on the Red Nose Day website, and parts of each show were shown during five half-hour specials on Comic Relief. The QI episode featured panellists Sue Perkins, Jo Brand, Russell Tovey and David Walliams. Davies admitted through Twitter that he was asked to host the episode when it was not certain if Fry would be available, but Davies declined. Once Fry confirmed his participation, Davies did not hear back from the production team. Unlike the classic format of the show where most questions follow a subject, this episode was instead an hour-long General Ignorance round.

Guest appearances

As of 17 February 2026, the following have all appeared multiple times as one of the guest panellists on the show. This list does not include the unbroadcast pilot, nor the special editions for the Comic Relief and Sport Relief telethons, nor any live stage editions.

47 appearances

  • Bill Bailey

46 appearances

  • Phill Jupitus

44 appearances

  • Jimmy Carr

43 appearances

  • Jo Brand

33 appearances

  • David Mitchell

27 appearances

  • Sean Lock

25 appearances

  • Rich Hall

20 appearances

  • Ross Noble
  • Josh Widdicombe

19 appearances

  • Aisling Bea
  • Jason Manford

18 appearances

  • Holly Walsh

17 appearances

  • Sara Pascoe

16 appearances

  • Clive Anderson
  • Cariad Lloyd
  • Sandi Toksvig

15 appearances

  • Rob Brydon
  • Sue Perkins

14 appearances

  • Jeremy Clarkson
  • Dara Ó Briain
  • Johnny Vegas

13 appearances

  • Susan Calman

12 appearances

  • Sarah Millican

11 appearances

  • Joe Lycett

10 appearances

  • Gyles Brandreth
  • Nish Kumar
  • John Sessions

9 appearances

  • Danny Baker
  • Victoria Coren Mitchell
  • Jack Dee
  • Sally Phillips

8 appearances

  • Cally Beaton
  • Noel Fielding
  • Lee Mack

7 appearances

  • Tom Allen
  • Ronni Ancona
  • Daliso Chaponda
  • Rhod Gilbert
  • Andy Hamilton
  • Colin Lane
  • Zoe Lyons
  • Richard Osman
  • Lou Sanders

6 appearances

  • Maisie Adam
  • Eshaan Akbar
  • Bridget Christie
  • Matt Lucas
  • Chris McCausland
  • Romesh Ranganathan
  • Liza Tarbuck

5 appearances

  • Stephen K. Amos
  • Rosie Jones

4 appearances

  • Desiree Burch
  • Ed Byrne
  • Jeremy Hardy
  • Alice Levine
  • Vic Reeves
  • Ahir Shah
  • Mark Steel
  • Jack Whitehall

3 appearances

  • Nabil Abdulrashid
  • James Acaster
  • Chris Addison
  • Julian Clary
  • Richard Coles
  • Roisin Conaty
  • Reginald D. Hunter
  • Lucy Porter
  • Kiri Pritchard-McLean
  • Arthur Smith
  • Linda Smith
  • Sindhu Vee
  • Mark Watson
  • Julia Zemiro

Rich Hall has the highest number of guest appearances in a single series—six times in Series B (half of the episodes that year), while Phill Jupitus has won the most episodes of any guest panellist, with 14.

a. Also made an additional appearance in the unbroadcast pilot.<br />

b. Also made an additional appearance in the 2011 Comic Relief episode.<br />

c. Also made an additional appearance in the live Sport Relief episode.<br />

d. Excluding Series N onwards. Toksvig took over hosting duties from Fry from the start of Series N.<br />

e. Also made an additional appearance in the 2022 Comic Relief episode.

International broadcasts

As of 2011, QI is distributed by Fremantle.

In Australia, QI is broadcast on the ABC. The programme was first broadcast on 20 October 2009 after the surprise ratings success of Stephen Fry in America. The ABC aired QI Series F first, but subsequently, in July 2010, ABC1 began broadcasting QI from the very beginning with Series A. QI has also been broadcast on the pay TV channel UKTV.

In March 2010, QI began a run in New Zealand on Prime. This was also aired on BBC UKTV in New Zealand. On 27 May 2011, Series A of QI was broadcast in South Africa on BBC Entertainment. QI series A-Q has also aired on BBC Entertainment in the Nordic countries.

There have been several attempts to broadcast QI in the United States. US networks that have tried to broadcast the series include Comedy Central, PBS, Discovery Channel and BBC America. Show creator and producer John Lloyd said that one factor in the failure to get the show broadcast is due to the cost. As QI features several images during each episode there are copyright issues. Lloyd said in an interview with TV Squad that: "No country in the world has bought the original show and this is partly a matter of cost. The pictures in the background of the show are only cleared for UK usage, so until the show is bought by a Stateside TV company and the rights cleared for World, the programme (is) unaffordable by smaller countries." Amongst the famous names also to express anger over QI not being shown in the US include comedian John Hodgman, who appeared as a "fifth guest" in the second episode of Series G. In 2013, QI was picked up in the US by the streaming video service Hulu.

On 30 January 2015 BBC America announced that they had acquired QI and planned on airing the show, beginning with Series J, on 19 February 2015.

Davies has criticised QI being repeated so often, saying "QI being in a soup of shows on one of these repeat channels ... completely devalues the brand". Davies thought the show would gain more viewers when a new series aired if channels made "an audience wait for a couple of months".

Versions and spin-offs

International versions

In 2008, the QI format was sold to the Dutch broadcaster VARA. Also called QI, the Dutch version of the show aired for the first time on 27 December 2008 and was hosted by the writer Arthur Japin with the comedian Thomas van Luyn taking the role of regular panellist. Japin also appeared (in the audience) in a British QI episode, "Gothic", explaining how the name Vincent van Gogh should be pronounced. The Dutch series was discontinued after six episodes.

A Swedish version of QI started airing on SVT1 8 September 2012, and was called Intresseklubben. Comedian Johan Wester hosted Intresseklubben, and Anders Jansson was featured as the regular panellist. A second series covering the letter B started airing in September 2013; Series C was recorded in June 2014 and aired in late 2014, while season D was recorded in June 2015 and started airing in August 2015.

A Danish version of QI, called Quiz i en hornlygte aired on DR2 between 2012 and 2013. The show was hosted by Danish comedian Carsten Eskelund. While not directly branded as a Danish version of QI, it maintained some recognisable elements, such as the difficulty of some questions and awarding points for interesting answers as well as negative points for wrong, but widely believed, answers.

The Czech version of QI was first broadcast on TV Prima on 14 August 2013. The programme is hosted by Leoš Mareš, with Patrik Hezucký appearing as a guest in every episode.

The QI Test

The QI Test was a planned spinoff version of QI that was to be broadcast on BBC Two. Created by Lloyd, Talkback Thames' Dave Morely and former QI Commercial Director Justin Gayner, The QI Test differed from QI in that it would have featured members of the public as contestants instead of comedians and celebrities. It would have been broadcast during the daytime schedules. The pilot was not hosted by Fry and was recorded in November 2009, but a series was never broadcast.

Mistakes and fact correction

<!-- PLEASE ONLY INCLUDE CORRECTIONS THAT QI HAVE ADMITTED. MUST INCLUDE REFERENCES. -->

Some of the answers on the show have been disputed and shown to be incorrect. In Series A, the show claimed that the longest animal in the world was the lion's mane jellyfish, but this was later corrected in Series C, saying that the longest animal in the world is the bootlace worm.

Members of the public and members of the QI website contact the show to correct information. At the end of the third series, Dara Ó Briain was docked points for having stated, in the previous series, that the triple point of water is zero degrees Celsius, an answer which earned him 2 points at the time. Viewers had written in to say that the triple point of water is in fact 0.01 degrees, and so the 2 points awarded Ó Briain in the previous series were revoked and he received a further deduction of 10 points for "saying a now obvious answer".

Various other retractions are made by the producers of the show on the special features of the DVD releases. The origin of the error may also be explained. For instance, Fry made a mistake when explaining why helium makes your voice higher, in the Series B Christmas special. He claimed that the gas only affected the frequency, but not the pitch, despite them being the same thing; in actuality, the timbre is affected.

Information contributed by a panellist during a discussion, but which has since been found to be false, have also been corrected. In the "Knowledge" episode in Series K it was explained that many facts on the show are later shown to be incorrect. Points were refunded to three panellists who had appeared previously; The largest refund went to Davies, who received in excess of 700 wrongly deducted points. Fry gave some examples of incorrect facts told in previous episodes, such as ones relating to lobster ages, the evolution of giraffe's necks and millipede legs.

More recently, the online forum now includes a "QI Qibbles" blog, which aims to rectify further mistakes in the show.

Notable examples

Welsh word for "blue"

The error that has attracted the most complaints to date was made in Series B, when it was claimed that the Welsh language has no word for blue. In fact, the word is glas. The error was explained on the "Banter" section of the Series B DVD as a mistake on the part of John Lloyd himself (the show's producer).

Flobbadob

An episode in Series B claimed that the language spoken by children's TV characters Bill and Ben was called "Flobbadob" and was named after the onomatopoeic phrase that supposed creator Hilda Brabban's younger brothers (after whom the characters were named) gave to their bath farts during their early childhood. However, in Series D, Fry read out the following letter written by Silas Hawkins, the son of veteran voice-over talent Peter Hawkins, who provided the original voices of the characters:

<blockquote>The fart-in-the-bath story was trotted out last year in an episode of Stephen Fry's otherwise admirable quiz show QI. It (the story) first appeared some twenty years ago in a newspaper article, to which my father immediately wrote a rebuttal. This was obviously ferreted out by some BBC researcher. It may be quite interesting, but in this case, it just isn't true.</blockquote>

Fry then apologised and corrected the error, saying "Their language is called 'Oddle poddle'. 'Flobbadob' means 'Flowerpot' in Oddle poddle."

Culture

QI has stated it follows a philosophy: everything in the world, even that which appears to be the most boring, is "quite interesting" if looked at in the right way. The website states that:

<blockquote>"We live, they say, in The Information Age, yet almost none of the information we think we possess is true. Eskimos do not rub noses. The rickshaw was invented by an American. Joan of Arc was not French. Lenin was not Russian. The world is not solid, it is made of empty space and energy, and neither haggis, whisky, porridge, clan tartans nor kilts are Scottish. So we stand, silent, on a peak in Darien a vast, rolling, teeming, untrodden territory before us. QI country. Whatever is interesting we are interested in. Whatever is not interesting, we are even more interested in. Everything is interesting if looked at in the right way. At one extreme, QI is serious, intensely scientific, deeply mystical; at the other it is hilarious, silly and frothy enough to please the most indolent couch-potato."

</blockquote>

On 28 December 2009, the BBC Radio 4 panel game The Unbelievable Truth, hosted by frequent QI guest panellist David Mitchell, broadcast a New Year's Special which paid tribute to QI. The show featured Fry, Davies and Lloyd on the panel, as well as Rob Brydon, another regular QI participant.

Controversies and criticism

Content perceived as offensive

In December 2010, panellists on QI made jokes during a discussion about Tsutomu Yamaguchi, who survived both atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. She said that Britain, as a nuclear power, had no right to "look down" on her father. In January 2011, the BBC issued an apology for "any offence caused" to Japan by the incident, recognising "the sensitivity of the subject matter for Japanese viewers". In February 2011, the BBC cited a "strength of feeling" in Japan following its atomic bomb joke broadcast in its decision to cancel the filming of part of its Planet Word documentary in the country, which was due to be presented by Fry.

In February 2011, the BBC received several complaints about jokes made in an episode of QI about Margaret Thatcher. Regular panellist Jo Brand commented that Lady Thatcher sounded like "a device for removing pubic hair". Later, panellist Phill Jupitus shouted "Burn the witch!" when a digitally altered picture of Thatcher, showcasing the Thatcher effect optical illusion, was shown on-screen. Several Conservative politicians condemned the remarks; and Lord Tebbit complained that "Lady Thatcher has been treated like this by the BBC for the past 30 years".

In 2011, an episode of QI featuring Jeremy Clarkson was withdrawn due to controversial comments Clarkson had recently made about people dying by suicide by jumping in front of trains. The QI episode did not contain any such statements, but was postponed "to avoid putting Clarkson in the spotlight". The episode, on the subject of "idleness", was broadcast later.

On 11 January 2013, an episode of QI ending with Fry reading a limerick about paedophilia was criticised by viewers, especially as it was broadcast directly before a Newsnight report on Jimmy Savile. The BBC Trust described the incident as "unfortunate and regrettable" and the limerick as "capable of causing offence", but ruled it was not in breach of BBC guidelines.

Gender gap