John Lloyd (producer)

For other people named John Lloyd, see John Lloyd (disambiguation).

John Lloyd
Secret Comedy Podcast, August 2013
Born	John Hardress Wilfred Lloyd (1951-09-30) 30 September 1951 Dover, England
Nationality	British
Alma mater	West Hill Park School The King's School, Canterbury Trinity College, Cambridge
Occupation	Television producer Comedy writer Radio presenter Author Radio director
Spouse(s)	Sarah Lloyd
Children	3

John Hardress Wilfred Lloyd, CBE (born 30 September 1951) 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 (with Peter Spence) and Quote... Unquote (with Nigel Rees). He wrote Hordes of the Things (as J. H. W. Lloyd) 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 (Douglas Adams wrote all the previous and subsequent episodes solo, as well as the television adaptation – though Lloyd was involved in the TV series as associate producer).

Lloyd then worked as a TV producer at both the BBC and ITV 1979–1989, where he created Not the Nine O'Clock News (with Sean Hardie) and Spitting Image (with Peter Fluck and Roger Law). 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 (short for "Quite Interesting" and a deliberate reversal of IQ), 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 (including the pilot) have been directed by Ian Lorimer. Lloyd currently presents the radio series The Museum of Curiosity (2011), 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 (CBE) in the 2011 New Year Honours for services to broadcasting. He is married to Sarah Lloyd (née Wallace) 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

Awarding Body/Event	Awarded
BAFTA Television Awards	1989 Best Comedy Series, for Blackadder Goes Forth 1987 Comedy Series, for Blackadder 1980 Light Entertainment Programme, for Not the Nine O'Clock News

Books

• Not! The Nine O'Clock News
• Not 1982 (Calendar)
• Not 1983 (Calendar)
• Not the Royal Wedding
• Not the General Election
• The Meaning of Liff (1983, with Douglas Adams)
• The Deeper Meaning of Liff (1990, with Douglas Adams)
• The Appallingly Disrespectful Spitting Image Book
• Spitting Image
• Blackadder: The Whole Damn Dynasty 1485–1917 (2000, with Richard Curtis and Rowan Atkinson)
• The Book of General Ignorance (2006, with John Mitchinson and the QI Elves)
• The Book of Animal Ignorance (2007, with John Mitchinson and the QI Elves)
• The QI Annual E [editor] (2007, with various authors)
• Advanced Banter (2008, with John Mitchinson and the QI Elves)
• The QI Annual F [co-editor] (2008, with John Mitchinson [co-editor] and various authors)
• The QI Annual G [editor] (2009, with various authors)
• The QI Book of the Dead (2009, with John Mitchinson and the QI Elves)
• The Second Book of General Ignorance (2010, with John Mitchinson and the QI Elves)
• 1,227 QI Facts To Blow Your Socks Off (2012, with John Mitchinson, James Harkin and the QI Elves)
• Afterliff (2013, with Jon Canter)

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 (with John Mitchinson) discussing The Book of General Ignorance