John Hardress Wilfred Lloyd, CBE is an English television producer and writer
best known for his work on such comedy television programmes as Not the Nine
O'Clock News, Spitting Image, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy,
Blackadder and QI. He is currently the presenter of BBC
Radio 4's The Museum of Curiosity, a spin-off of QI.
Early life Lloyd was born in Dover, England. His
father, H. L. 'Harpy' Lloyd, was an Anglo-Irish captain with the Royal Navy.
As a child Lloyd lived in several different places, owing to his father's
job. This led him to attend school properly only at the age of 9 1⁄2. He
was educated at West Hill Park School in Titchfield, Hampshire, a place where he
claims bullying was "endemic", and later at The King's School, Canterbury. He
read Law at Trinity College, Cambridge, and was a member of the Footlights.
There he befriended, and later shared a flat with, Douglas Adams.
Lloyd is the great nephew of John Hardress Lloyd.
Career Lloyd worked as a radio producer at the
BBC between 1974 and 1978 and created The News Quiz, The News Huddlines, To
The Manor Born and Quote... Unquote. He wrote Hordes of the Things with Andrew
Marshall, co-authored two episodes of Doctor Snuggles with Douglas Adams, and
went on to co-write the fifth and sixth episodes of the first radio series of
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy with Adams.
Lloyd then worked as a TV producer at both the BBC and ITV 1979–1989, where he
created Not the Nine O'Clock News and Spitting Image. He also produced all
four Blackadder series. Lloyd was originally to have been the host of BBC
topical news quiz Have I Got News For You, with the programme initially
intended to be called John Lloyd's Newsround. A pilot episode of the show
was recorded under this name in mid-1990, with Lloyd hosting alongside
team captains Ian Hislop and Paul Merton. Lloyd subsequently decided to
pull out of hosting the programme full-time and the pilot episode was
never broadcast. Lloyd was replaced by Angus Deayton as host and the show was
renamed Have I Got News for You in time for its debut on BBC2 later that year.
Recent work Lloyd has worked as a TV commercials
director on and off since 1987. His first new TV series for 14 years, QI,
starring Stephen Fry and Alan Davies, began on 11 September 2003 at 10pm on
BBC Two for a run of 12 episodes. In its eighth series, which started on BBC One
in September 2010, Lloyd appeared as a panellist in one of the episodes. All
episodes of QI have been directed by Ian Lorimer. Lloyd currently presents the
radio series The Museum of Curiosity, which he co-created with producers
Richard Turner and Dan Schreiber and former co-host Bill Bailey. In December
2011, Lloyd appeared as part of the winning Trinity College, Cambridge team
on the Christmas University Challenge. Lloyd was appointed Commander of the
Order of the British Empire in the 2011 New Year Honours for services to
broadcasting. He is married to Sarah Wallace/Lloyd and has three children.
In August 2014, Lloyd was one of 200 public figures who were signatories to a
letter to The Guardian opposing Scottish independence in the run-up to
September's referendum on that issue. His most recent work, 1,411 Quite
Interesting Facts to Knock You Sideways, a collaboration with John Mitchinson and
James Harkin, will be released in 2015 with W.W. Norton and Company.
Awards Books
He co-authored the books: Not! The Nine O'Clock News
Not 1982 Not 1983
Not the Royal Wedding Not the General Election
The Meaning of Liff The Deeper Meaning of Liff
The Appallingly Disrespectful Spitting Image Book
Spitting Image Blackadder: The Whole Damn Dynasty
1485–1917 The Book of General Ignorance
The Book of Animal Ignorance The QI Annual E [editor]
Advanced Banter The QI Annual F [co-editor]
The QI Annual G [editor] The QI Book of the Dead
The Second Book of General Ignorance 1,227 QI Facts To Blow Your Socks Off
Afterliff References
External links John Lloyd at the Internet Movie
Database John Lloyd at TED
Guide to Comedy entry from the BBC The People Behind QI
The Idler Archives — Conversations: John Lloyd
John Lloyd discussing The Book of General Ignorance