TV comedy producer John Lloyd’s one-man Edinburgh festival show, Liff of QI — the first time he has performed in the Scottish capital since 1976 — is partly based on his Liff books, in which he recycles signpost place names to describe perfectly ordinary things that should have names but don’t. And partly on his ups and downs with the suits at the BBC.
All was going swimmingly this week until he spotted Tony Hall, the new director-general of the BBC, in the 100-strong audience - and dried up. Perhaps Lloyd was Etting (def: “struggling to remember in the middle of an anecdote why you started telling it”) and had an Arbuckle Junction ( “that point in the task where you realise it’s going to be a lot harder that you thought”).
Or even made a Barlin (“the hand gesture with thumb to ear and little finger to mouth which signals you’d like someone to call you”). Given Lloyd’s successful comedy track record, it should have been Hall doing the Barlin.
