I don’t know if the QI team knew that Stephen Fry was quitting at the end of the series before they filmed the first episode, but there was one question that seemed to suggest they had an inkling. The programme had a medical theme and at one point Fry asked what part of your body can you live without. As Alan Davies, Lucy Porter, Matt Lucas and Ross Noble fiddled with anatomically correct dummies I thought to myself what part of QI can the programme live without? In particular can it live without Stephen Fry?
Judging from this episode it may certainly survive when Sandi Toksvig takes over, but it will be a different animal. I guess in the same way the dynamic between Hislop, Merton and Deayton had to change when Deayton left Have I Got News For You, so the relationship beween Davies and the new host will be recalibrated. On Twitter when the news broken Davies tweeted: “A Dane you say? We'll all have pastries and jumpers and it'll be shot in black & white.”
Yet even in this episode Davies did not seem quite the blokey fall guy he used to be, mostly managing to resist the obvious answers that used to prompt a klaxon and the friendly derision of the headmasterly host Fry. I expect Toksvig and Davies will seem even more like equals.
Despite the mild mocking of Davies there has always been something essentially nice and decent about QI that makes it stand out from other panel shows. It exudes the genial air of a Radio 4 programme, so there is some logic in the former R4 host taking over in the hot seat.
And there is less testosterone in the air than in, say, Mock The Week (even though that is less macho than it was). It also doesn’t feel as scripted as other panel shows and there are not as many opportunities to shoehorn bits of one’s stand-up set into the format. The result is something that feels more like a cosy, intelligent dinner party chat than a platform for grandstanding. In this edition everyone played their part. Matt Lucas was good value as ever (in fact he’d probably be a good host) and Lucy Porter really should be on TV more often.
The only slightly smutty elements came from Ross Noble, but he was so funny it didn’t remotely offend when he talked about his issues when donating sperm or pointing out that it is impossible to crack an egg with one’s buttocks. We took his word for the latter and he didn’t feel the need to prove it. As it happened it turned out that the uterus is the strongest muscle, giving women the edge over men. We shall see in the next series if Toksvig has the edge over Fry.
Fridays, 10pm, BBC2. Watch the first episode on iPlayer here.
