Studying QI

Audience Pleasures

There is no denying that QI brings the British audiences comic relief. From the comfort of sofas or in the workroom QI gives its audiences the pleasure of receiving knowledge whilst having a good laugh at its contestants and their whit. The show is currently hosted by Sandi Tolsvig with her recurring contestant Alan Davies. In Episode 15 of  Series N, they are joined by well known comedians:

Holly Walsh  

 Nish Kumar

Philll Jupitus. 

 The shows theme was Nonsense, so the audience can already anticipate the jokes and comebacks that are set to make them laugh. There are several audience pleasures in the show, these are either created by Sandi and her guests or the creators of the show. Here are a list of them.

Aesthetic

 "concerned with beauty or the appreciation of beauty"

Though beauty for the show is not physical it is comical and intellectual. It forces its audience to know things in an extraordinary way. Sandi creates thought-provoking questions which appear quite obvious to the viewer however, in reality are quite different from the obvious answer. In the Jan 4th 2017 episode Sandi ask her guests

"Talking of legs of different lengths, why's netball nonsense?".

"Hidden meaning transforms unparalleled abstract beauty."

Intertextuality 

"the relationship between texts, especially literary ones."

For example in this episode the contestants makes a lot of references to other texts like Coldplay, netball and Indian Sport.

This creates relatability for the people at home watching as they understand what the contestants are able to describe and enjoy the acknowledgement of these things. This allows audiences at home to create relationships with the celebrity personalities. As they have something in common with them.

  "That's a Coldplay B-side, isn't it?"

"Kabaddi is an Indian sport. If you don't know what it is,"

   

Repartee

"conversation or speech characterized by quick, witty comments or replies"

This show is strongest audience pleasure is the use of repartee. Alan Davies

		is often the center of the repartee. However because the panalists on the show are comedians it makes it easier to bounce of boring topics and make them interesting. That is why the show is called Quite Interesting. The audience are able to join in the Banter and feel apart of it. As if they are joking are around with their own friends or co-leagues at work or at the pub.
		"Is a child an item?"  "I bet you'd sell a lot of children's t-shirts if it just said I am not an unattended item"                                                Slapstick “Slapstick is a style of humor involving exaggerated physical activity which exceeds the boundaries of normal physical comedy. The term arises from a device developed during the broad, physical comedy style known as Commedia dell'arte in 16th Century Italy.” An example of Slapstick humour in the show QI is the Buzzers. The Buzzers are used to introduce the contestants of the show. Unlike regular panalist shows with ordinary buzzers that have the usual ding noise. QI's buzzers often relate to the topic of the show. This brings audience pleasure as it allows the audience to warm up to the panalists and anticipate something funny to come out of their jokes.  "And their buzzers sound like nonsense too. Holly goes..."  'The trouble with kittens is that..."