Katherine Macalister is bombarded with knowledge by the QI Elves

You would expect the QI elves to be living in a grandfather clock or crammed into the attic of a mad professor’s house, but instead I find them ensconced in a very respectable office in Covent Garden preparing for their new tour, surrounded by thousands of books.

Shouting out facts like bullets, the team constantly compile, analyse and compose facts which will then be swallowed whole by the gannet that is now the QI machine.

The birthplace of QI is of course Oxfordshire, John Lloyd and John Mitchinson famously meeting in the Falkland Arms pub in Great Tew, where they hatched their plan for QI.

The TV series followed, now in its 13th year, Oxford’s ill fated QI private members’ club and bookshop on Turl Street, books, festivals, merchandise and now a stage show No Such Thing As A Fish.

Except there is one categorical difference, in that the elves seem to have cut the apron strings and are now going it alone. Finally taking centre stage, having played second fiddle to the likes of Stephen fry and Alan Davies for too long, now is their time.

And despite emerging blinking into the daylight, the elves seem remarkably unfazed about appearing in front of a sold out audience at the North Wall.

“I don’t have a problem with being on stage. I’m not interested in being famous but I like sitting down and talking about facts, and meeting people who are as interested as me,” QI elf and former Oxford High School pupil Anna Ptaszynski tells me.

“So how did the No Such Thing As A Fish shows come about? “They are just an extension of the podcasts really which went down really well. We tried it out at Edinburgh Fringe and the audiences loved it so it’s just gone from there really.”

Picking their favourite facts, the team of four will then analyse them on stage, a strange concept perhaps, but one that has been going down a storm on their national tour.

Like? “Well that for the last month of his life, US president James Garfield ate everything through his anus, which is actually true if rather gross,” Anna tells me.

Anna grew up in Oxford and still spends most weekends down here in Garsington.

So what makes a good elf?

Longest serving QI elf James Harkin says: “We have had some elves in the past who didn’t work out despite being fiercely intelligent, because you also have to have a very curious, questioning mind.”

All however admit to being total geeks, hoarding facts and figures like a squirrel with nuts for the front line to fire off at the QI panellists or on their live podcasts.“Well you have to be a bit of a geek, although geeks are trendy now,” Anna laughs.

They scan websites, books, magazines, archives, follow up leads and then verify the gems they find.

“We just pick out facts that are snappy, sometimes humorous, punchy and something that get a reaction, but we have to be careful because Dan (Schrieber) makes up a lot of stuff to keep us on our toes,” Anna tells me.

James 37, says he retains most of the facts he comes across. He was a bored accountant when the QI team came across him, emailing the show on a regular basis with ideas.

“It’s not a nine-to-five-job,” he says. “So if I go to a zoo at the weekend I would be working out how to incorporate the monkeys into the next show.”

Anna, 29, says her friends have a special voice when they know she’s about to impart a fact. “They can always tell when one’s coming,” she laughs.

And do they ever get caught out? “One of Dan’s facts turned out to be an April fool. It was a recipe for unicorn stew which he was very pleased with until a reader pointed out the date on it – April 1!” James says.

Coming to Oxford’s North Wall tomorrow night, the tour is only taking in university towns. “The stage show audience tends to be in their late 20s, and attracts a younger audience than the TV shows,” Anna tells me.

So why this growing thirst for knowledge? “QI thinks our 6th sense is curiosity.

“But facts and figures also give people like us, geeks and misfits, something interesting to talk about. We are not special, we are not experts in anything, we just find information that makes people think. And it means we don’t have to talk about what we did at the weekend or who we went out with. It means we don’t have to talk about ourselves.”

Where and when
No Such Thing As A Fish with the QI Elves is at The North Wall, tomorrow.
Go to thenorthwall.com for tickets and further information