John Lloyd on his incredible comedy career

John Lloyd is one of the UK's most acclaimed television and radio comedy producers, having been responsible for Blackadder, Not The Nine O'Clock News, Spitting Image, QI, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and The News Quiz. He also helped Hitchhiker's author Douglas Adams write the seminal science fiction saga when it came to Radio 4. And, despite being fired by Adam before the second series, the pair went on to write The Meaning of Liff together. 

Featuring hundreds of place names recycled to express familiar experiences, feelings and objects for which no words exist - such as Berriwillock (n.) - an unknown workmate who writes 'all the best' on your leaving card, and Kettering (n.) - the marks left on your bottom or thighs after sunbathing on a wickerwork chair - the classic dictionary has now been republished in a 42nd anniversary edition.

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Why has The Meaning Of Liff endured?

Well, it's got some very good jokes in it. Douglas used to say it was the best thing we'd ever done. When people like it, they like it a lot. I know several comedians who think it's the funniest book ever written. 

I don't blow my own trumpet because I haven't taken credit for ideas for 30 years. They just arrive. Creative people are people who notice things, this stuff is waiting to be discovered. When Douglas got stuck on Hitchhiker, I gave him the manuscript for my unwritten novel in case he wanted to use any of it.

There's a concept in there called Arteology. This idea that nothing is really creative, only rediscovered. A creative person is like an archaeologist, they're faced by a huge, blank piece of sand and they dig stuff out. Eventually, they find a paw of a stone lion and think 'oh, that's good'. They brush a bit more and there's a bit of a head, until eventually a sphinx emerges. That's my theory anyway.

I once wrote a film for Paramount, delivered it late and the studio head didn't read it. She threw it in her swimming pool.

What was the film?

The original title was Lady Salisbury. I can't remember what it was called by the end. Royal Flush? I was rewriting a script from Pat Proft, the gag man on Naked Gun and Airplane.

You were asked to direct The Naked Gun 33 1/3 weren't you?

Yes, but I didn't want to do it. Anyway, I'd got this Pat Proft script and it was very difficult because it featured a male detective and they wanted to make it a female detective to be sort of progressive. This was the Nineties. I could do anything with the plot as long as it starred a woman and we kept these 360 gags from the original script. 

But the logistics of trying to fit everything together into a plot that made sense had me at the end of my tether. My family went on holiday and I sat in my underpants and struggled with it. Then one day, I had a shower and suddenly I could just sit down and start typing the last scene. I wasn't inventing anything, I was reporting something as if it had happened in another dimension. It was an absolutely mystical experience. 

A lot of novelists will tell you that their characters take over and command the plot, you're simply an observer. 

You need to be receptive?

Yes. Over the years, I've tried to reduce the number of opinions I have. But one I can't shake is that creativity arrives from another dimension. Mozart said he never composed a note. He just listened to God.

You've worked with people considered geniuses such as Douglas, Peter Cook and Rowan Atkinson. Are they just more receptive than most?

I think it's sort of the other way up. Creative people are sort of damaged, there's a hole in the membrane that divides you from the great whatever it is. I never saw Peter do any real work. He would just arrive, usually with half a bottle of vodka. And stuff would just flow out of him. I used to say that he was like an underground aquifer of jokes. Some people are like standpipes. They just stick their spade in the ground and all this stuff comes out. Geniuses don't have to try. Unlike people like me who have to really work.

But Douglas agonised over writing didn't he?

The way he generally wrote was that he'd spend a year tinkering with the first paragraph. And eventually, the publisher got so annoyed that they'd send a man with a shotgun round. Or kidnap him. So it's not a conscious thing. I remember being very depressed years ago when I read that Handel had written Messiah in 24 days, one of the greatest pieces of music ever, quite unlike anything he'd done. Then many years later, I read that he was bipolar and used to get very depressed. But he'd been thinking about this thing for 15 years. And then one day, it's suddenly there, it's ready. It just comes out.

[One Foot In The Grave writer] David Renwick, who is also a genius, once told me that he'd write by lying down flat on the carpet for as many hours as it took, working everything out. Then eventually, when he was ready, he'd get up and write the whole thing in one go. It had all been fermenting inside of him. 

You brought the likes of Steve Coogan and Harry Enfield onto Spitting Image early in their careers. Do you think your greatest skill is your eye for talent?

To be honest, it's my only skill. I was at university with Douglas and Griff Rhys Jones. Douglas was clearly an extraordinary writer. And Griff was the greatest actor, theatre director and theatre designer of his generation. He could easily have become Peter Hall, he was unbelievably gifted. And I thought well, I can remember lines and don't bump into the furniture as an actor. And I'm a pretty good journeyman writer, neat and tidy. 

But I didn't have the talent of either of those guys. So I got the comedy plumber job as Rowan used to call it, the guy who puts things in order.

Most of all perhaps, my skill is knowing what I like. That's all it is. 

Is that an essential part of being a producer?

I was thrown in to being a producer, told I was doing it at 22. I didn't want to. I wanted to be a writer-performer. I had to learn on the job. I'd made 100 programmes before they sent me on a training course. I asked [BBC Head of Radio] David Hatch what a producer does. And he told me, 'well, just make stuff you like. Because at least you'll get one person liking it, won’t you?' And that's how we were all trained. The person upstairs spots somebody they think can do it and lets them do it. 

Early on, I listened to more senior people and found that I didn't agree. But being young and inexperienced, I thought they must be right. But after two series like that I thought well, I won't do that again. I listen to the voice in my head, the voice of something much bigger than me.

In a time of opinion polls, politicians and the media are researching what people want and trying to replicate it. But that isn't good if you want originality. Because people like Douglas Adams are doing something nobody's ever done before.

Was it easy to retain the courage of your convictions when Blackadder, Spitting Image, Not The Nine O'Clock got off to slightly rocky starts?

Yes. But ITV and the BBC stuck to their convictions too. They thought 'well, OK, there's something here. It's not right yet. It's a bit wobbly. But have another go'. And that was not just with me. It was commonplace then.

Not to put too fine a point on it, I have slightly strange religious views. A lot of vocal atheists will say: 'How can there be a God when there are so many mistakes, so many horrible errors and a lot of the universe doesn't make sense?' The duck billed platypus looks like it's been cobbled together on a dreadful hangover.

But the best argument for a creator God is lots of mistakes. Because that's my experience of creativity, having ideas, realising they're wrong and then changing them. The person who doesn't make mistakes will never make anything. It's a fumble process. 

I used to see it when I directed ads for 10 years. And film editing. The first cut, you know that you got all the takes, it's a funny script. But it doesn't work. Then you jiggle it around, take a shot out, move this. And suddenly, there it is. Fantastic. And it could never have been another way. 

One of Douglas' great lines is: 'Any fool can write. Only a writer can cut.' Or as Hugh Laurie put it: 'There's almost no such thing as a good idea or a bad idea. It's all in the execution.'

It was Remembrance Day recently. That final scene in Blackadder Goes Forth still gets shown in schools to teach children about the war. Do you take pride in that?

I take humility in it. It is honestly one of the most magical things that I've ever been involved in. And my only contribution was to say that we shouldn't put credits on it. You couldn't have 'Best Boy: Jeffrey Farnes Barnes'. That would have been embarrassing. It was a really seminal moment. 

Why did you turn down becoming BBC head of comedy?

Well, a number of reasons. It was the end of the Eighties. And bafflingly, I'd had Not The Nine O'Clock News, Blackadder and Spitting Image, all in 10 years. I worked every weekend and missed everybody's weddings. I don't know what was driving me. In my narrow, niche genre, I was a bit of a celeb I suppose. But I'd had enough of working, I was absolutely whacked. And I'd met my wife.

I've never wanted power over anybody. I don't want to order people about. I just like to work with small groups.

It's hard enough making programmes as it is. The idea that you're responsible for 25 other producers and their work … I didn't see how I could do that because I'm a hands-on person. I don't say 'this doesn't work, make it better'. I go, 'how about we do this?' Coming from a writer-performer background I know enough about what the actors and writers are doing to help them. To suggest a different approach. But for 25 others? There wasn't time in one's life.

It was an extraordinary offer though. The guy who really pressed me to do it was Sir Paul Fox, managing director of the BBC. Every time I saw him, he said: 'John, you made a big mistake. You should have taken that job.' 

And for a long time, I agreed. I thought that what's happened to comedy is my fault. Because I went off and shot comedy ads for 12 years instead of taking the grown-up job. I'm from a Navy background, a slightly Presbyterian, hair shirt kind of person. I believe in duty very strongly and it felt like a dereliction of duty. 

Instead of flying round the world, making tonnes of money and having a rather glamorous career, I should have sat in an office in White City and struggled to make other people's sitcoms better.

How do you feel about the state of TV comedy now? And BBC comedy in particular?

Well, I want to go on working. So I'm going to be discreet. But it's sad that there isn't very much comedy on television now. Probably half as much comedy as there was 10 or 15 years ago, perhaps less. And it isn't just a BBC issue. ITV have made a conscious decision that there's no point in making comedy. That they're better off making another soap or police procedural. 

Something isn't working, it's industry-wide. I don't know how it's happened or why. Everybody's trying to be professional, everybody's trying. 

I remember when research came into advertising. It used to be people did what they liked. Saatchi's would have a mad idea and do it. And then research came in. And research tends to level everything down. Everything becomes more like itself. Because obviously research groups are people who are not professional television producers or creative people necessarily. So when they're asked what they want, they can only say what's already there. They can only choose between what already exists.

Do you lament the lack of satire especially?

It used to be a watchword for being British, that we could laugh at ourselves. It's definitely the sign of a healthy society, that the people who lead are held to account in a comic way. That's good for everybody's mood, it's good for airing issues. 

I've only ever heard of one politician who actively didn't like their Spitting Image puppet. Everyone had photos of them on their walls, just like politicians all have cartoons of themselves in their downstairs loo. Most have a sense of humour about it.

Who was that?

Reportedly only Ted Heath. Those you might think wouldn't like them, such as David Steel, he thought his puppet was funny. Even if his family didn't like it very much.

QI is still going strong. Is it true that you're going to move on to numbers once you've exhausted the letters?

That's my pitch. And we've floated it as an idea. It's quite funny and we could probably do the first 100 numbers. So that'll only take 100 years. Obviously I'll be somewhere else by that stage. 

We're doing X at the moment, which you would think is impossible. X-rays, xylophones, that's it as far as most people are concerned. Xenophobia, Xerxes? I don't think I've met anyone who can think of more than six.

We started early, at our own expense, thinking it was going to be very difficult. But we're basically there on the scripts. We've enough to fill 14 shows.

Were you approached about the new Spitting Image?

When they tried to revive it for BritBox a few years ago, before it went to YouTube, Roger Law took me out to lunch with the guy who became the producer [Matt Stronge]. And I love Roger. Lunch was great. He's always very entertaining. 

But I dreaded being asked to be involved. Because it nearly killed me when I was 30. It's nice if other people want to set it up. But it's not my bag. You need to be young, bottomlessly energetic and self-certain. You need to have a lot of opinions. And as I say, I've tried to reduce mine. Nothing tells you how complex and impenetrable the world is like doing QI research every day. 

I remember John Mitchinson, my first co-researcher, spent a week trying to discover the largest thing a blue whale can swallow. Do you know the answer?

Something surprisingly small?

Yes, a grapefruit. Their throats are about the dimensions of a side plate. Very hard to find out quite early in the life of the internet. But he nailed it. So if you've spent a week finding that out, having half-baked opinions about what's going on in the world or why a politician does something, it's not for me. Not anymore. It's not interesting enough. Too knee-jerk.

Blackadder and Not The Nine O'Clock News have aged well. Have you tried to make shows that last?

I remember thinking that Spitting Image was going to be huge. Ben Elton came and did some writing early on, he thought the same. He was knocked out by the early puppets.

But back then I really cared about being successful. Or being seen to be successful. That's not in my wallet these days. It's very hard to describe why some programmes matter and some don't. And there's very low correlation between amazingly successful programmes and whether they matter or not. Some programmes that matter have very small audiences. Some have very large audiences. 

QI arose from me having a midlife crisis because I was fired from two or three things in a row after being, very, very successful for a long time. And I couldn't understand how I lost my mojo. I lost all sense of the point of doing anything. Is it just winning prizes? After being very angry, resentful and depressed for a couple of years, I thought - there has to be a better reason for being alive than he who dies with the most toys wins.

So I went on this extraordinary adventure reading everything. I was directing cheese commercials but getting into maths and physics. Doing ads for financial services then going home in the evening to read Heidegger and Spinoza, to try to work out epistemology [the theory of knowledge]. 

Then I had an epiphany in 1999. I suddenly thought, wait a minute, QI stands for Quite Interesting. It's also the Chinese word for the life force. And it could be radio, telly, educational videos, shops. I felt I'd discovered a new chemical element, interestingness. I didn't plan it. It just arrived, like a complete song.

And that idea for QI was one of your ideas for the 24-hour comedy radio station, Radio Barking, which you tried to launch in the early 1990s?

Yes, that's right. I just rediscovered that in my notes.

Are you still trying to make QI part of the education system?

Someone suggests that probably once a year. Or they ask if I'm surprised that it's lasted for 22 years. And I say, 'well, yeah, of course, it's great'. I mean, it's the happiest show I've ever worked on. It's not the longest show I've been involved with. I started The News Quiz, which is going to be 50 years old very soon. Again, don't ask me why it's lasted so long. I don't know.

I think QI has lasted so long because it's about something. At its best, it's as funny as any other panel game. Maybe not as funny as Would I Lie To You?, that is a masterpiece. Or, indeed, I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue. But in its good moments, it's really funny. And you're learning. By stealth, most people don't even realise. A year later they'll go, 'do you know what the largest thing a blue whale can swallow is?'

QI is Reithian to its boots, educational, informative and entertaining. And it shows people at their best. When people come on QI, even if you don't like their stand-up very much, you'll see them in a way that makes you like them.

The comedians really like doing it and stay late in the green room because it's friendly, it's warm. A lot of modern telly's about jeopardy, failure, coming last and being cancelled. And that doesn't happen on QI. Audiences need a haven. Somewhere to go which is persistently nice.

Can you tell me about your potential collaboration with producer and music industry legend Laurence Myers?

I'm going to be speaking to him, if not today, then tomorrow. That thing has revived itself actually. 

Is it a musical project?

No, it's a collaboration with a lot of old people. The central idea is  that people in their 80s, if they've still got all their faculties, know a lot. They're as funny as people in their 20s, so why not? Everyone's desperate to get young people to watch television, so the ageing population are an underserved audience. There's not enough stuff for them really.

So it's a television idea?

Potentially. Potentially everything, podcast, radio, theatre and telly. Rather like QI. QI is really an app. It happens to be best known as a television show. But actually the podcast No Such Thing As A Fish is exactly the same principle. The Museum of Curiosity ran for 17 series [on Radio 4]. And that's another way of expressing QI, just with the ignorant person at the centre rather than to the side.

Might you be open to reviving Radio Barking?

I think so. There were several extremely good ideas in there that have since been done. So it's not as fresh. It would be more familiar and easier to sell though. The two things that we really invented before they were a thing were Radio 4 Extra and Dave. I went to see the head of what's now BBC Studios. And I said to him, you've got tonnes and tonnes of comedy radio shows in the vault that you can't repeat very often because the audience complain.

But I'm a commercial station. And if you give me the keys to your archive, we're going to call it BBC Comedy Hour. Or Vintage Comedy Hour or whatever. Every day, we'd run a couple of things back to back and I'll give you half the advertising revenue. And he said 'I love that idea, it's a brilliant idea. It's money for nothing isn't it? And it would have given us acres of programming. But it was blocked higher up for some reason.

And then, of course, Radio 4 Extra started. And because it's a repeat channel, no-one complains. No-one complains that Dave is full of repeats. They love it.

A 24-hour comedy radio station sounds a terrible idea. Like Spitting Image. You want to build 900 latex puppets? How are we going to get the money that would cost? This is insane, it's the most expensive comedy on television ever. 

I said to the two guys who brought the Radio Barking idea to me - it takes me a year to make one series of six Blackadders. But we set about it. The programming was written by me, Douglas Adams and Chris Donald from Viz. And it was the most fun. One of the basic insights was that, if you think of any of your half dozen best friends, how long can you go on talking to somebody once a week? You wouldn't have any problem filling three hours. With your best friend in the pub, probably several nights a week. More so when your friends are comedians.

What did you have lined up?

As you mentioned, the Stephen Fry slot was called Quite Interesting with Stephen Fry. He would talk about interesting things with his friends. And Hugh Laurie's programme was called Jazz Piano and Motorbikes. Because those were his two big passions. Probably still are and he knows a lot of people who do both things. What's not to like?

Now that everybody in the world has their own podcast though, there's probably not the market for essentially curating lots of them.

Still, I feel the lack of broadcast comedy as the most baffling thing. Where has it gone to? Even as stand-up is more pervasive than it's ever been.

I hadn't appreciated that you were steeped in radio but ignorant of television comedy when you arrived at Cambridge University. Did that help you carve your own path?

Yeah, I really wasn't familiar with television from a young age. Because I don't think my parents even had a telly until I was about 10 because my dad was in the Navy. We lived all over the world and you couldn't see the BBC if you lived in Malta, Canada or Gibraltar. Then at boarding school we weren't allowed to watch television unless it was the World Cup final or something.

But I listened to radio all the time. The World Service had all the classics, Round The Horne, The Clitheroe Kid. And The Navy Lark, obviously, was our favourite. That was the tradition I grew up with.

And you know, I'm not the Professor of Ignorance at Southampton Solent University for nothing. It's something I really believe in. I think ignorance should be taught and celebrated. As I say, I try to make stuff that I personally like. I don't really care, in the nicest way, what other people think they want. Being ignorant is what I want to do.

It's that important?

I resigned from radio in a fit of pique after Douglas sacked me from Hitchhiker and went looking for a job as a floor manager. But I got a job as a producer. I didn't ask for it, just as I didn't ask to be a radio producer. I've actually failed every single form of job interview I've ever done. All the jobs I've got have been given to me, usually unwillingly, from my point of view. 

I was thrown into television with absolutely no experience. I'd literally been in a television studio once when I briefly wrote for The Two Ronnies. And so I didn't know what I was doing. We broke every rule in the book with Not The Nine O'Clock News. Similarly, when we did Spitting Image, I'd never worked with puppets before. I had no desire to work with puppets and just thought it was a very good idea.

When I went into advertising, I'd never directed anything, only one pop video for Genesis. Though that did win a Grammy. But otherwise, I'd never directed anything and didn't want to. I'd watch directors having meltdowns, losing their temper and firing people for no reason. I thought it must be terribly difficult. 

Yet I started directing ads. And literally the first ad I directed was at Shepperton. I went to the DOP, Dave. And I said, 'I'm really sorry, Dave, but I don't know anything about how film works. I don't even really know what depth of field is. Could you help me?' And he said, 'yeah, sure mate, absolutely love to'. Because no director had ever asked him that before. And by that evening, I was hooked. I should have been a director at 22. I absolutely loved it. 

And obviously, QI is the essence of ignorance. I get up every morning and start researching something I don't know about.

What was it like returning to performing later in life at the Edinburgh Fringe?

When I did my first one-man show in 2013, the thing for me was that it's all in the prep. Writing it was hellish because I thought I was a complete fraud. What am I doing this for? This is insane. It's arrogant, unbelievably vain. I couldn't find the thread and my wife was really worried about me. She thought I was going to jump off a building or something because I was so stuck. 

But after the first night, I thought 'oh no, this is what I was meant to do'. At 21 I got distracted. And I've been doing the wrong job for 40 years.

That month in Edinburgh, I loved every single minute. I did it every teatime to about 250 people. And I've often said it was the best month of my life, I've never had a month that was so joyous. There were marvellous moments. Because it was such an odd idea that this producer bloke thinks he can be funny on stage. 

I'm sure a lot of people came hoping for a train crash. Others, because I've got a lot of friends in comedy who came to support me. One time I went in to get ready and behind the door was Ronnie Corbett, hiding because he didn't want to be in the queue. He just said: 'No pressure.' One day, Tony Hall, the BBC director general, came and sat in the front row with Mrs Hall. Behind him was Andrew Marr and Mrs Marr. And David Mitchell and Victoria Coren.

Tony Hall was impressed but I don't think he'd ever been to the Edinburgh Fringe. And the BBC tent was really impressive because they've got these young producers, people in their early 20s, producing major things with major stars and huge audiences and they're doing a really good job. And there didn't seem to be any hierarchy or corporate structure. That was exactly what happened to me at that age, thrown in at the deep end.

Tony said to me then, 'We should do more of this'. And it hasn't happened, that has sort of gone away. Everybody is so invested in this business of reporting upwards, that's never happened before. The deal used to be: 'Off you go. Please don't screw up. If you screw up, I'm going to have to get a bit cross with you.' Nobody was micromanaged.

Does working with younger people on QI keep your comedy instincts sharp?

Well, of course. What's lovely about younger people is that they're not nearly so cynical. There's a very different attitude to what my peers would have had in the 70s. People are much more responsible. They definitely drink a lot less. But the enthusiasm and the energy of youth is very beguiling and very attractive.

 Our researchers are obviously super smart but they're also very curious, very nice people and they're so up for stuff. 

Do you still have ambitions in terms of television and radio, are there ideas that you're pitching?

There are loads of things. I would say 70 per cent of things I really wanted to do have never happened. I mean, there's about five movies. My novels. Radio Barking. But I'm not personally ambitious, I cured myself of wanting to win prizes. I don't agonise about that anymore.

When I have spare time, the first thing I do is start researching something that I don't know about. It has never failed to deliver. The comedy is a by-product. One of the great things about The Museum of Curiosity and QI is that people aren't trying to be funny. They're trying to be interesting and the comedy comes because they're naturally funny. Rather than deliberately attempting to be hilarious.

Might you relaunch The Museum of Curiosity as a podcast?

I suppose so. But it's a bit formatty for a podcast. No Such Thing As A Fish is the best, most consistent podcast anywhere. But it's a bit like people saying to me: 'Why don't you do another series of Blackadder?' Well, we can't. We can't top the end of the final series. You can't go back after that, its not possible to do it better. Why not let it lie? 

Do you ever speculate on what Douglas might be working on now if he were still alive? Would you still be collaborating?

Well, when Douglas gave me the heave-ho, it broke my heart and it was very difficult. I was very upset. But in retrospect, I was lucky because I went on to do all sorts of different things. And Douglas got really stuck. I know there was Dirk Gently. But he basically got stuck. He didn't like writing. He didn't like working on his own. And his feeling that it wasn't as funny with me, firstly, I'm sure that wasn't true. But also it was lonely for him. And I have not been lonely. I've been surrounded by amazing people that I really like. 

I don't think Douglas knew where he wanted to go. When he came up with Hitchhiker, he was brilliant. Unbelievably clever, terribly funny and unusual. He had a great way with ideas and lines. But he was very young. He didn't have the answers to anything. Hitchhiker asked all the big questions but it comes up with none of the answers. The only answers it comes up with are technological ones: the iPad, the Internet.

These are things that Douglas envisaged. But basically, he asked the big questions and it ends on a joke. And I sometimes say that if Douglas hadn't sacked me and we'd stayed friends, we'd have written these four novels I want to write. They're not about the questions. They're about the answers to everything. 

Like many things I've done, it's dauntingly difficult and I don't know if I'm up to writing novels. Maybe they're past their sell-by- date. The basic idea is to explain how everything works but in a funny way.

Might you work with someone else to realise them?

No. And that sounds silly. But people sometimes ask if I know what the meaning of life is? 

And I say yes but how many hours have you got? It takes quite a long time. The second thing is, if I told you, you wouldn't believe me. And thirdly, even if I told you, it wouldn't work because the deal is you have to work it out for yourself. 

Don't follow in the footsteps of old men, seek what they sought. Don't take anybody's word for what the meaning of anything is. You've got to work it out for yourself.

• The reissued Meaning Of Liff by John Lloyd and Douglas Adams is available from Amazon priced £14.78 – or from uk.bookshop.org, below, which supports independent bookstores.  

Published: 20 Nov 2025