The News Quiz Behind the Scenes

Ever wondered how The News Quiz is put together? It sounds so slick on the radio but how difficult can it be to get a bunch of funny people together to read the newspapers then talk about them into a microphone? In 2004, we sent a member of the website staff to follow the production team around for the week as they prepared the first programme in a new series for broadcast.

Monday 3 and Tuesday 4 February 2004

"I like it but it was on page 15..."

The start of the week finds News Quiz Producer Simon Nicholls in his Broadcasting House office surrounded by piles of newspapers and listener correspondence. The panel for this Friday's show - Alan Coren, Andy Hamilton, Linda Smith and Sandi Toksvig - have all confirmed their attendance, so now it's time to find some questions that they can get their comedy teeth into.

While the broadsheets teem with Iraq-related stories, the tabloids are obsessing over Michael Jackson but our job is to select sixteen different stories for the four rounds that make up the quiz, following this broad model:

Round 1 - pages 1-3 of the newspapers (politics, war, Europe)
Round 2 - pages 4-8 (education, health, housing)
Round 3 - lifestyle, science, arts, etc
Round 4 - silly stories (animals, record breakers, funny foreigners)

The other main task of the day is to sift through the mail and select appropriate news cuttings for the team to read out at Thursday's recording - short, punchy ones for the newsreader, longer ones for the panel and anything to do with parrots for Alan Coren.

The News Quiz office receives an average of 20 letters and 15 emails a day, made up of funny news stories from around the world, fan mail, unsolicited jokes and letters of complaint about a perceived political bias in the show.

Wednesday 5 February 2004

"It's been quite a thin week..."

Another pile of newspapers to digest this morning. Lord Irvine's pay rise and the adventures of a pregnant cow catch the producer's eye and he types up a shortlist of stories to take along to the writers meeting.

Simon Littlefield, George Poles and Paul McKenzie are The News Quiz's very own gag factory, and it's their job to write the questions for the show and the related jokes Simon Hoggart rounds each question off with.

The first task is to pick eight news stories from the shortlist. An item about Frieda Hughes is suggested and rejected but Gordon Brown, Rowan Williams and a rival to Viagra all make the grade. The writers then share out the potential questions - George gets Cialis, the Archers virus and a pregnant cow, Simon opts for Michael Jackson, the army and asylum seekers, leaving Paul with the House of Lords and the economy - and they head back to their computers to try and find something funny to say about each one.

Simon, the producer, also takes the opportunity to try out the humorous press cuttings on the writers. Some elicit a smile, many end up in the bin.

Most of the afternoon is taken up with email exchanges between the writers and the producer as questions and jokes fly back and forth across the digital divide.

Listen to the team unearth the comic potential of some major news stories

Thursday 6 February 2004 - the Build-up

"Shall we bother with the war?"

Another meeting with the three writers and a second set of eight questions to thrash out. This time Rasputin and a Patagonian tooth fish are chewed over and spat out and the final question proves a very tricky choice. Diets, seahorses, hayfever, and church music licenses all make their bid for radio glory but the Patagonian fish makes a last minute dash for the line and makes it into the show.

The day's next task is to "grid up" (picture above), which involves allocating each question to an appropriate panellist. Andy Hamilton gets the facial hair-related stories - Saddam Hussein and shaving - but should the question about women in the army go to one of the female panellists?

An important distinction between The News Quiz and its TV spin-off is that the panellists don't know the questions in advance. So the jokes you hear are truly off-the-cuff.

With the questions sorted, The Guinness Book of Hit Singles makes an appearance as it's time to choose the musical clues that accompany four of the questions in each show. We trawl the decades for tenuous links and draw up a playlist including The Beatles (Hello, Goodbye), Blondie (Picture This), Living in a Box (Living in a Box), Bob Marley (Concrete Jungle) and any number of Michael Jackson songs - Bad, Leave Me Alone, Off The Wall.

Marijke Good, the show's trusty BA, is dispatched to the BBC's Record Library to find the CDs and the writers get back to work. George contemplates war, John Prescott and close shaves, Simon wrestles with OFSTED, Catherine Zeta-Jones and the fish, and Paul tries to find the comic angle on prisoners' diets and the new black.

Are the writers trying to make themselves laugh or Simon Hoggart?

Thursday 6 February 2004 - the Recording

"Imagine what the postman thought"

It's the evening of the recording and, once the panellists have confirmed they're definitely turning up, there's some final joke polishing and editing to be done and then we pile into a taxi and head for the Drill Hall in central London with our scripts and the box of records.

Several very eager listeners are already gathering outside but the theatre is still empty and the music is handed over to the studio engineers, Rodger and Tim, for dubbing. Marijke makes sure there's water, pads of paper and pens for the panel and the hospitality arrives.

Charlotte Green, this week's newsreader, will be late arriving as she's reading the 6 O'Clock bulletin in West London but Simon Hoggart is the first team member to arrive at 6pm, ready for a read-through with the producer during which the writers' jokes are tried out and cut down to a shortlist of favourites.

Andy Hamilton, Alan Coren, Linda Smith and Sandi Toksvig arrive with an hour to go before the curtain goes up. Just time for a quick glass of wine and a sandwich and to pick the funny press cutting they'll be reading out at the end of the show. The audience queue swells and Charlotte makes it through the London traffic with plenty of time to spare.

At 7.30pm Simon the producer takes the stage, reminds the audience to laugh at the funny bits and introduces Simon Hoggart and the panellists. After some horseplay with a stuffed deer they find in the wings the recording is underway and one and a half hours later it's all over, the retakes are on tape and the audience members leave, all laughed out.

The production team and the panellists retire to the bar to reflect on comedy bulls-eyes, missed opportunities and Charlotte Green losing it (briefly) on stage.

Simon Hoggart on the shelf-life of The News Quiz

Should Andy Hamilton be paid danger money?

Linda Smith has her eye on the Chairman's seat

Friday 7 February 2004

"We present The News Quiz..."

8am - an early start for the producer as there's an hour and twenty minutes of material that has to be ruthlessly cut down to 28 minutes by transmission time - 6.30pm.

Studio manager, Andy Garratt, is in control of SADiE, the digital editing machine, and we watch as whole questions on OFSTED, asylum seekers and Gordon Brown disappear from the screen at the flick of his mouse.

By lunchtime a rough edit has reduced the show's length to 38 minutes and, as the afternoon progresses, it's the final few minutes that prove the most tricky.

Every surplus laugh, pause, cough or stumble is ditched to leave room for the funny stuff, and finally at 4.30 we reach the magic number - 28 minutes and 15 seconds.

Once we've established that the programme contains nothing that need worry the lawyers or the Radio 4 controllers, the final cut is put onto tape, delivered to the Continuity department for broadcast and it's time to hit the bars of the West End and forget all about current affairs for a while.