QI: Very Varied


10:00 pm - 10:30 pm, Tuesday, March 10 on BBC Two England (2)

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About this Broadcast

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Very Varied
Season 22, Episode 3

Ross Noble, Sara Pascoe and Sally Phillips join regular panellist Alan Davies on the comedy quiz, with host Sandi Toksvig asking 'very varied' questions


HD subtitles repeat 16x9
Comedy Movie/Drama Quiz Show Show/Game Show

Cast & Crew

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Alan Davies (Panellist)
Ross Noble (Panellist)
Sara Pascoe (Panellist)
Sally Phillips (Panellist)
Ben Hardy (Director)
Piers Fletcher (Producer)
John Lloyd (Executive producer)

More Information

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Did You Know..

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Sandi Toksvig (Host)
Born: May 03, 1959 in Copenhagen, Denmark
Best Known For: Whose Line is it Anyway? and The News Quiz.
Early-life: Sandra Birgitte Toksvig was born in Copenhagen on May 3, 1958. Due to her father's job as a foreign correspondent for a Danish TV station, she grew up in Europe, Africa and the US. She studied anthropology, archaeology and law at Cambridge, and hoped to become a human rights lawyer. She won several prizes for academic achievements, and also appeared with the famous Footlights entertainment group. Sandi took a year off her studies to work as a lighting technician at a London theatre - and never looked back.
Career: Toksvig went on to work at Nottingham Playhouse and for the New Shakespeare Company before landing a job as a writer and performer on children's show No 73 in 1982. She then moved onto the comedy circuit and began to gain a wider following thanks to regular appearances on Radio 4's I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, hosting the station's News Quiz, and Channel 4's Whose Line is it Anyway? She became a Call My Bluff team captain in 1997, and began presenting a revival of Fifteen-to-One in 2014. In 2015, she left her job as the presenter of The News Quiz to help set up the Women's Equality Party.
Quote: On the intellectuals she met while a Cambridge student: 'They could split the atom, but not wire a plug.'
Trivia: Toksvig was awarded an OBE in 2014. She has written several novels.
Alan Davies (Panellist)
Born: March 06, 1966 in Loughton, Essex
Best Known For: Jonathan Creek and being the permanent panellist on QI.
Early-life: Alan Roger Davies was born in Loughton, Essex, on March 6, 1966. Together with his older brother and younger sister, Alan was raised by his accountant father, following the death of his mother from leukaemia when he was six. Despite disliking school, he was a bright child and passed 12 O-Levels and two A-Levels before studying drama at the University of Kent. On graduating, he signed on for an Enterprise Allowance Scheme to help fund his assault on the London comedy circuit.
Career: Davies performed his first stand-up gig in 1988, and by the early 1990s was a rising star, picking up rave reviews at Edinburgh. He later gave up playing clubs to concentrate on radio. His Radio 1 series, Alan's Big One FM, led to TV appearances on shows such as One Foot in the Grave, before he was cast as the lead in Jonathan Creek, the light-hearted mystery drama that made him a household name. Other acting work includes Bob and Rose, A Many Splintered Thing, The Brief, Marple, Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging (2008), Lewis and Whites. He presented the three-part documentary Alan Davies' Teenage Revolution for Channel 4 in 2010 and was a judge in 2011 on ITV talent show Show Me the Funny. He's also appeared in West End hit Auntie and Me. He has been a permanent panellist on irreverent quiz QI since the show began in 2003.
Quote: 'I'm like a fine wine. I'm maturing.'
Trivia: In early 2012, he announced his first UK stand-up tour in 12 years.
Ross Noble (Panellist)
Born: June 05, 1976 in Cramlington, Northumberland
Best Known For: His hugely popular and very random stand-up tours
Early-life: Noble is originally from Cramlington, near Newcastle. 'The ultimate in dullness' helped him with his career - he found little to do in his hometown so he became particularly imaginative. He joined a clown troupe and sold balloons as a stilt-walker, before deciding to become a comedian after winning tickets to a comedy show. Noble has been performing since first appearing in his local comedy club at the age of 15.
Career: Since starting as a stand-up comedian, Noble has won many awards, including a Time Out award winner in 2000 for his Edinburgh show Chickenmaster, and a Perrier Award nomination in 1999 for another Edinburgh Festival show Laser Boy. He has since achieved great popularity in both the UK and Australia, where he has toured extensively every year since 2001. Noble's 2003 show Unrealtime was the best-selling show at the Edinburgh Fringe. His annual DVDs and tours are always hugely well received.
Quote: 'It always ends up with a chinchilla on a bicycle. That's just my mind.'
Trivia: In a poll for Channel 4, Noble was voted the 10th on a list of the 100 Greatest Stand Ups.
Sara Pascoe (Panellist)
Born: May 22, 1981 in Dagenham
Best Known For: Being a comedian.
Early-life: Sara was born in Dagenham on May 22, 1981, the daughter of Derek Pascoe, vocalist and saxophonist in 1970s pop group Flintlock. Sara went on to study English at the University of Sussex. She began performing stand-up in 2007.
Career: Pascoe first appeared in her own show at the Edinburgh Festival in 2010. Since then, she has toured around the UK and appeared on a number of TV panel shows, including Mock the Week, Never Mind the Buzzcocks and QI. She has also acted in The Thick of It, The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret, Campus, Twenty Twelve and W1A. In 2016, she published Animal: The Autobiography of a Female Body.
Quote: 'I don't think there are any subjects you can't joke about because human beings are forgiving of subject matter when we find things funny.'
Trivia: Pascoe is a vegan. In 2014, she was nominated for the Edinburgh Comedy Award for Best Comedy Show.
Sally Phillips (Panellist)
Born: May 10, 1970 in Hong Kong
Best Known For: Smack the Pony
Early-life: Phillips was born in Hong Kong in 1970, the daughter of Tim Phillips, the chairman of the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club who host The Championships, Wimbledon. She was educated at the private Wycombe Abbey School, in Campbell House and then graduated from New College, Oxford with a 1st class degree in Italian. Keen for a career on the stage she was involved in nine consecutive Edinburgh festivals. Her first TV role was in Lee and Herring's Fist of Fun in 1994, shortly after followed by a cameo in Alas Smith and Jones.
Career: Her role as a receptionist in I'm Alan Partridge proved to be her big break and she was nominated for best female newcomer at the British Comedy Awards that year. She had a starring role in the short-lived 1999 British comedy series Hippies (with Simon Pegg and Julian Rhind-Tutt), and also co-created and wrote Smack the Pony, the all-female, double Emmy Award winning comedy show. She appeared in Bridget Jones's Diary as 'Shazzer', and has appeared in such success stories as Jam and Jerusalem and hit comedy Miranda.
Quote: 'Both my boys are obsessed with Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and I have spawned the greatest, tiniest Dick Van Dyke impersonators of all time. Me Ol' Bamboo has to be seen to be believed.'
Trivia: She has played the title role in Radio 4 sitcom Clare in the Community since 2004.
Ben Hardy (Director)
Born: January 02, 1991 in Bournemouth
Best Known For: Playing Peter Beale in EastEnders.
Early-life: Ben was born in Bournemouth on January 2, 1991. He studied acting at the Central School of Speech and Drama.
Career: Hardy's big break came in 2013 when he landed the role of Peter Beale in long-running BBC soap EastEnders.
Quote: On being in EastEnders: 'It crosses my mind they might bump me off. You're always aware it could happen. You know you could lose your job at any moment.'
Trivia: In 2013, Hardy was nominated for two Inside Soap Awards.
Piers Fletcher (Producer)
John Lloyd (Executive producer)

Before / After

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Newsnight
10:30 pm