Hosted by QI’s question researchers, also known as the QI Elves, the podcast has enlivened people’s commutes since it launched in 2014, with a weekly dose of unbelievable facts and stories that didn’t make the series.
In each episode, researchers James Harkin, Andrew Hunter Murray, Anna Ptaszynski and Dan Schreiber discuss the best pieces of trivia they’ve come across that week.
If you can judge a sitcom solely on the strength of its catchphrases, Only Fools and Horses is a gem. Three decades on from its heyday, Derek “Del Boy” Trotter’s sayings – “lovely jubbly”, “you plonker” and “cushty” – are part of our everyday language. We even remember his terrible Franglais – “mange tout, mange tout, as the French say” – by which Del meant “no problem”.
Saturday morning, 7:00am. Heading into the weekend shift on my motorbike. A small bonus of returning to the NHS is having permission to ride to and from work.
I scoot past a small herd of red deer grazing by the side of the road, tempted down from the hill by the empty roads and the promise of sweet verge grass. An almost perfect post-apocalyptic visual.
As a rural motorcyclist, I fear deer more than anything else, convinced my ultimate fate is to be speared by a stray antler as I whizz around a blind corner at full lean. Thinking of the NHS, I slow down a bit.
March 2020 was a month like no other in television. Concern that staff might become infected by Covid-19 brought rapid changes as broadcasters cancelled filming on some of their biggest shows. For what is believed to be the first time in more than half a century, even the set of Coronation Street went dark.
The UK is being tested as never before in peacetime – and in an age when communication is immediate and uncontrollable and diffuse. But, if the nation does come together and get through the challenges of Covid-19, it will have done so with the help of the most traditional forms of public service broadcasting (PSB).
It is no exaggeration to say that Sally Rooney is one of the biggest names in contemporary literature. Her debut novel, Conversations with Friends, and its follow-up, Normal People, have won literary prizes and been fixtures in the bestseller lists.
Snakes chewing through camera cables, raging bush fires and thunderstorms knocking out feeds. It seems the challenges of filming a TV show in the jungle are as tricky as any Bushtucker Trial.
Sourcing 450,000 cockroaches and convincing celebrities that there really won’t be any secret pizza deliveries are some of the tasks undertaken by the producers of ITV’s I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here!
These are strange times to be a sports reporter. All national and international fixtures and events have been cancelled. The Premier League, Euro 2020, the Masters, French Open, Grand National, Olympics, London Marathon and Wimbledon are among the events that have been affected.
Peter Bowker doesn’t “do diversity”. Yet, over the past couple of decades, this RTS and Bafta award-winning screenwriter has become TV’s “go-to guy” for dramas featuring people with disabilities.
A comic and compelling double act, of Bowker and his long-time collaborator the actor Christopher Eccleston, entertained the RTS North West’s capacity audience at the Lowry in March. They traced the development of Bowker’s work as he has, increasingly, challenged stereotypical representations of people affected by learning disabilities.
When Disney announced that its eagerly awaited streaming service, Disney+, would launch in the UK and Western Europe in March no one knew that the service’s debut would coincide with a global pandemic keeping millions of people at home.
“With much of the UK looking for entertainment while they are stuck at home, Disney+ is likely to be a big hit,” said Shiv Pabari, director of media and entertainment at Simon-Kucher & Partners. “Families, in particular, will be excited by the content offered.”
