A quite interesting show with John Lloyd

The OId Market, Upper Market Street, Hove, Saturday, October 17

WHEN it comes to accolades John Lloyd isn’t short of a few, having devised the brainbox panel show QI and BBC Radio 4’s long-running The News Quiz, and produced Blackadder, Not The Nine O’Clock News and Spitting Image.

But for his debut Brighton show he has adopted the title of Emperor Of The Prawns – a sobriquet which is only explained in the closing moments of his performance.

“It’s always difficult to express the whole thing in a couple of words,” he says.

“There are so many shows at the Edinburgh Fringe with a joke or gag in the title. With Emperor Of The Prawns we thought people would just wonder what it was.”

The show comes two years after Liff Of QI, his solo stage debut, which explored his life in comedy, and threw in a few QI facts and alternative dictionary definitions culled from his collaboration with Douglas Adams, The Meaning Of Liff.

“What people like about QI is it’s a warm, friendly show where you learn something,” he says. “It’s education by stealth.

“For me it’s the search for meaning. There is so much information in the universe, so everyone specialises. But even in a tiny little area like super conductors or the mating habits of the octopus you can’t know everything.”

He sees interesting stuff as something of a distraction from the grind of everyday life, but there is a serious point to it.

“Underneath the jokes comedy is another way of looking at the world,” he says.

“Depression is another way although not a helpful way.

“The duty of comedians and the people who broadcast comedy is to cheer people up. The modern fashion in comedy is to be cold, edgy and rather nasty.”

Lloyd came up with the concept for QI while researching facts for his son.

The QI approach is very simple – to read everything, but only write down the interesting bits, whether it is about pandas, Bolivia, or Henry IV.

“It wasn’t difficult to sell QI,” he says 13 years on from its first show. “BBC One didn’t want it, the commissioners didn’t really understand the scoring system.

“Jane Root from BBC Two bought it on the spot – I described it as a cross between Have I Got News For You and Mastermind.”

He says the pilot show, which featured host Stephen Fry with guests Eddie Izzard, Bill Bailey, Alan Davies and Kit Hesketh-Harvey, was the second best pilot he ever made after The News Quiz back in 1977.

“I wrote a draft of the script and sent it to Stephen,” says Lloyd. “He rang me back that evening saying it was amazing. I showed the pilot to a few friends who said it was going to be the next big thing – there was something about it.

“Michael Gove said the way to teach people is make lists and insist they learn the lists.

“Teaching should be about how to learn for yourself. Someone once said the only way to educate a child was teach it to read, because everything else is brainwashing. You need to light a spark in a child so they teach themselves.

“Learning should be for its own sake – for the joy of it. It’s the exploration of strangeness which drove Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein and James Dyson.

“A byproduct of QI is we have a new generation of schoolchildren who have learned a new general knowledge.”

As well as QI Lloyd was also involved in the creation of another show which helped see the political world in a different way.

But after an awkward pilot show he left the host’s chair of Have I Got News For You to Angus Deayton.

“Before the filming I had to shop for a suit that I didn’t feel comfortable in,” he says.

“I went into make-up and the make-up lady said I was losing my hair. I went on stage feeling more depressed than I had felt in 15 years!

“I couldn’t do the thing where Angus looked as if he was making it all up when he was reading the autocue. Having started the News Quiz I felt I was repeating myself.”

Going on the road with a live show is a return to what he was doing 40 years ago, before he was first offered a job as a producer on radio and television.

“QI has been running for 13 years,” he says. “We’ve got a brilliant producer and production team – there isn’t much need for me in it anymore!

“This is an adventure for me.

“In a weird way it’s a bit like Jeremy Corbyn – audiences are getting a different voice. I’m not a professional stand-up, or a national treasure, or a scientist. It’s somebody bringing the view of an ordinary person with an extraordinary set of experiences.

“The show was started by the idea that if every day you could get people to hear one thing that will help them in life, that would be enough for me.”

Starts 7.30pm, tickets £13/£11. Call 01273 709709.