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John Lloyd (producer)

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John Lloyd
Secret Comedy Podcast, August 2013
Born
John Hardress Wilfred Lloyd

(1951-09-30) 30 September 1951 (age 73)
Dover, England
NationalityBritish
Alma materWest Hill Park School
The King's School, Canterbury[1]
Trinity College, Cambridge
Occupations
SpouseSarah Lloyd
Children3

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 9½. He was educated at West Hill Park School in Titchfield, Hampshire, a place where he claims bullying was "endemic",[citation needed] 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 Douglas Adams, with whom he later shared a flat.

Lloyd is the great nephew of John Hardress Lloyd.[2]

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). He also produced The Burkiss Way.

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 is married to Sarah Lloyd (née Wallace)[3] and has three children.

He 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 (Sandi Toksvig from 2016) 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.[4] Lloyd was also awarded an honorary degree from Southampton Solent University.[5]

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.[6]

His most recent work, 1,411 Quite Interesting Facts to Knock You Sideways, a collaboration with John Mitchinson and James Harkin, was published in 2014 by Faber and Faber.

Awards

Awarding Body/Event Awarded
BAFTA Television Awards[7]

Books

References

  1. ^ "John Lloyd". QI. Retrieved 20 February 2016.
  2. ^ Centre for First World War Studies
  3. ^ "Quite Interesting". QI. 1 November 2012. Retrieved 26 August 2014.
  4. ^ "No. 59647". The London Gazette (invalid |supp= (help)). 31 December 2010.
  5. ^ "John Lloyd CBE receives honorary degree". Southampton Solent University. Archived from the original on 29 September 2015.
  6. ^ "Celebrities' open letter to Scotland – full text and list of signatories | Politics". theguardian.com. 7 August 2014. Retrieved 26 August 2014.
  7. ^ "Awards Database". BAFTA. 18 November 2012. Retrieved 18 November 2012.
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