The uninteresting creator

QI is the quizzical creation of John Lloyd, one of the most successful comedy producers of the past few decades. He's won 10 BAFTAs (you'd think one, or two, or three would have been enough) and worked on such landmark programmes as Not the Nine O'Clock News, Spitting Image and Blackadder.

And why? Because he was a total workaholic during the 1980s, toiling away for around 90 hours a week and getting by on four hours sleep a night. By the early 90s he was two-homes rich, but at a crossroads.

"It suddenly occurred to me that I was a very uninteresting person," he remembers. "I had said what I had come to say, and I didn't have anything to say any more."

Better than sex

The moment of truth caused Lloyd to stop working on any long projects for more than a decade - apart from directing some Barclaycard commercials with Rowan Atkinson (the ones which inspired the Johnny English movie).

Instead, he spent all his time reading. And, "the more I read, the more I was surprised that none of what I was reading ever seemed to reach the public's gaze."

And it was this that led him to devise a quiz show in which the questions would challenge misconceptions and drench the viewers in trivia goodness. He was after what philosopher Thomas Hobbes called "the lust of the mind "that exceedeth the short vehemence of any carnal pleasure." In other words, QI is better than sex!

Dumbing up

One priority for the production team was to make QI not only massively informative, but also a genuinely pleasant experience. In other words, they wanted to completely avoid the sarcastic, mickey-taking, insult-lobbing style of other panel shows like Have I Got News for You and Never Mind the Buzzcocks.

"It's like going to the pub with some people you really like," Lloyd explains. "It's very un-negative."

Which might explain why perpetual nice guy Alan Davies is a regular, along with a cuddly Stephen Fry, who has the air of your favourite eccentric school teacher. "He is the perfect host," says Lloyd. "He is enormously well-informed. For example, he knows the Godfather Part II off by heart and could also tell you more about porpoises than you could ever want to know."

QI facts about QI

The QI theme music is by Howard Goodall, who has written themes for Blackadder, Red Dwarf, and the Vicar of Dibley. He's also actually been a panellist on QI.

The highest score in QI (so far) was attained by comedy actor Helen Atkinson-Wood, who correctly identified the chemical equation for the oxidation of glucose (or, as she put it, an explosion in a custard factory). However, in the Children in Need 2006 episode, Jonathan Ross was given a somewhat excessive 3,000,000 points - but that's just silly.

The lowest score is -144 by Alan Davies, who got a 150 point penalty for suggesting Gandhi's first name was Randy.

QI-dquarters

QI is more than just a quiz show, you know. John Lloyd has actually created a production company with that name, and they have a special QI building in a Georgian building in Oxford.

The QI headquarters feature a café, bookshop, vodka bar and members-only club. Naturally, the books in the bookshop are not arranged in any sensible or coherent way - the books are just grouped together if they share running themes or quirks, so science books intermingle with novels and crime with humour.

The place is also a bit posh, with the head chef having trained with Jamie Oliver, and if you want to sit in the members area you have to hand in your mobile phone at reception. And don't disturb the QI elves - that band of busy brain-boxes who spend all their time researching facts for the show!