No Such Thing As A Fish | |
---|---|
Presentation | |
Hosted by | James Harkin Andrew Hunter Murray Anna Ptaszynski Dan Schreiber |
Genre | Comedy |
Created by | The QI Elves |
Language | British English |
Updates | Weekly, every Friday |
Production | |
Opening theme | "Wasps" by Emperor Yes |
No. of episodes | 396, 432, 566, 584, 598 |
Publication | |
Original release | 8 March 2014 |
Ratings | 4.72/5 |
Related | |
Website | https://www.nosuchthingasafish.com/ |
No Such Thing as a Fish is a weekly British podcast series produced and presented by the researchers behind the BBC Two panel game QI . In the podcast each of the researchers, collectively known as "The QI Elves", present their favourite fact that they have come across that week. The most regular presenters of the podcast are James Harkin, Andrew Hunter Murray, Anna Ptaszynski and Dan Schreiber, and there are occasional guest presenters. When one of the regular presenters is unavailable for any reason, fellow QI elves Alex Bell and Anne Miller often take their place.
Since the launch of the podcast it has attracted 700,000 subscribers. [1] In 2014 No Such Thing as a Fish was named by Apple as the "Best New Podcast" that year. [2] In 2015 and 2016 it won the "Internet Award" in the Chortle Awards. [3] [4] In 2018 the podcast won the Heinz Oberhummer Award for Science Communication. [5]
In May 2016, a television spin-off series entitled No Such Thing as the News began on BBC Two. [6]
As of October 2023, there are over 500 episodes of the podcast, [7] usually ranging between 30 minutes and an hour. A new episode is released every Friday.
The title for No Such Thing as a Fish comes from a fact in the QI TV series. In the third episode of the eighth series, also known as "Series H", an episode on the theme of "Hoaxes" reported that after a lifetime studying fish, the biologist Stephen Jay Gould concluded that there was no such thing as a fish. He reasoned that although there are many sea creatures, most of them are not closely related to each other. For example, a salmon is more closely related to a camel than it is to a hagfish. [8] The opening of early episodes of the podcast used to feature a recording of the elves mentioning this fact, which appears in the first paragraph of the Oxford Encyclopedia of Underwater Life. [9] [10]
In each episode each presenter takes it in turn to present their favourite fact that they have come across that week. [11] They discuss the information surrounding that fact, and the other presenters add in extra facts and information connecting to it.
In an interview with ThreeWeeks , Schreiber said the podcast "came about because too many facts in the QI office kept going to waste. Like the time Chief Elf James Harkin looked up from his computer and said: 'You know there are currently over 600 guys in the world with two dicks'. We decided to gather round a microphone once a week and share our favourite facts we'd found that week." [12] Murray told The Independent : "We almost released it by mistake. We uploaded it and only mentioned it on our own personal social media accounts. We thought it was good, but the reaction has been lovely. It seems like there's a real appetite for more podcasts like this. There is a feeling of resurgence of the whole medium." [13]
Until mid-2023, episodes were recorded at the QI offices in Covent Garden; the offices have since moved to a new location in Holborn. There have been live recordings in other locations, usually whilst on tour, as well as from the hosts' individual homes during COVID-19 lockdowns. [14] [15] The theme tune used is the song "Wasps" by Emperor Yes, whose lead singer Ash Gardner has also appeared as a guest on the podcast. [16]
Miranda Sawyer in The Observer gave the podcast a positive review writing, "the podcast is jolly, packed with impressive and silly facts, and so far hasn't descended into too much in-joke chumminess, so hooray for No Such Thing As a Fish". [17]
Comedy critic Bruce Dessau wrote on his Beyond the Joke blog that: "All it lacks is the likes of Alan Davies [a panelist on the TV version of QI] and co chipping in with their comedic quips, but there are still plenty of laughs to be had." [10]
In December 2014 the podcast was named by Apple as the "Best New Podcast" for 2014. [2] In March 2015 it won the "Internet Award" in the 2015 Chortle Awards. [3] It won the same award again in March 2016. [4]
In April 2019 it was announced that the podcast won the "Heinz Oberhummer Award für Wissenschaftskommunikation" [18] (Heinz Oberhummer Award in science communication), an Austrian award for excellence in science communication. The award is named after Heinz Oberhummer, an Austrian physicist, founder and former part of an Austrian science cabaret, the Science Busters .
On 20 November 2015, The Complete First Year of No Such Thing As A Fish LP record was released, containing a bonus-length exclusive episode not planned for broadcast, featuring a guest appearance of Corey Taylor. [19] The LP, released by Alcopop! Records, included downloadable versions of the first 52 episodes of the series, covering the entire first year of the podcast. It was released on heavyweight black and yellow limited edition vinyl. [20]
On 2 November 2017, a book written by the four presenters entitled No Such Thing as a Fish presents The Book of the Year was published, which features facts collected during the year 2017. [21]
In aid of Comic Relief for 2021, a one-off marathon special was streamed live for over 20 hours across 12–13 March 2021, featuring 35 guests for 35 minutes each. [22] [23] [24]
QI is a British comedy panel game quiz show for television created and co-produced by John Lloyd. The series currently airs on BBC Two and is presented by Sandi Toksvig. It features permanent panellist Alan Davies and three guest panellists per episode; the panellists are mostly comedians. The series was presented by Stephen Fry from its beginning in 2003 until 2016.
Phillip Christopher Jupitus is a retired English stand-up and improv comedian, actor, performance poet, cartoonist and podcaster. Jupitus was a team captain on all but one BBC Two-broadcast episode of music quiz Never Mind the Buzzcocks from its inception in 1996 until 2015, and also appears regularly as a guest on several other panel shows, including QI and BBC Radio 4's I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue.
Russell Joseph Howard is an English comedian, television presenter, radio presenter, and actor. He has hosted his own television shows, Russell Howard's Good News and The Russell Howard Hour, and appeared on the topical panel TV show Mock the Week. He won "Best Compère" at the 2006 Chortle Awards and was nominated for an Edinburgh Comedy Award for his 2006 Aberdeen Festival Fringe show. Howard has cited comedians Lee Evans, Richard Pryor, and Frank Skinner as influences.
Mark Andrew Watson is an English comedian, novelist and producer.
Thomas Paul Allen is an English comedian, actor, writer and presenter. In 2005, he won the So You Think You're Funny contest at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
Sarah Jane Millican is an English comedian, writer and presenter. Millican won the comedy award for Best Newcomer at the 2008 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. In February 2013 she was listed as one of the 100 most powerful women in the United Kingdom by Radio 4's Woman's Hour, and in the same year she married fellow comedian Gary Delaney. Her first book, How to Be Champion, was published in 2017. Millican has performed on various tours, mainly across the United Kingdom, over the years.
Sarah Kendall is an Australian comedian from Newcastle, New South Wales. She won the Raw Comedy competition in 1998 and appeared regularly on Australian television. She moved to the United Kingdom in 2000 at the age of 24.
Jack Peter Benedict Whitehall is an English comedian, actor, writer, and television personality. He is known for his roles as JP in the comedy-drama series Fresh Meat (2011–2016) and as Alfie Wickers in the sitcom Bad Education also co-writing the latter and its film adaptation, The Bad Education Movie (2015).
Daniel Craig Schreiber is an Australian radio producer, writer, podcaster, and comedian based in London. He co-created the BBC Radio 4 panel show The Museum of Curiosity with host John Lloyd and co-producer Richard Turner and co-hosts the podcast No Such Thing As A Fish.
Alcopop! Records is a British independent record label, run by Jack Clothier and Kevin Douch formed in East Oxford, 2006. The label works with DITZ, DZ Deathrays, Johnny Foreigner, Fight Like Apes, Anamanaguchi, Peaness, TIGERCUB, Gaffa Tape Sandy, The Spook School, Nelson Can, and QI.
Katie Cariad Lloyd is a British comedian, actress, writer, and podcaster. A member of the improvisational comedy group Austentatious, the host and creator of Griefcast, and an improv teacher.
Dane Baptiste is a British stand-up comedian, writer and presenter. He was the first Black British act to be nominated for the "Best Newcomer" award at 2014's Edinburgh Comedy Awards and his comedy series Sunny D premiered on BBC Three in Spring 2016. He has made numerous TV and radio appearances, and hosts his own podcast Dane Baptiste Questions Everything. In January 2021, Baptiste's comedy pilot Bamous launched on BBC Three / BBC One. In 2024, Baptiste was dropped by his agents after he posted a death threat on social media which was condemned for being antisemitic and misogynist.
No Such Thing as the News is a British television comedy series on BBC Two, which is a spin-off to the podcast No Such Thing as a Fish, produced and presented, from 20 May 2016, to 30 November 2016, by the researchers behind the panel game QI, also on BBC Two. In it each of the researchers – James Harkin, Andrew Hunter Murray, Anna Ptaszynski and Dan Schreiber – collectively known as "The QI Elves", present their favourite facts related to the previous week's news.
Philip Nathaniel Wang Sin Goi is a British-Malaysian stand-up comedian and comedy writer who is a member of the sketch comedy group Daphne, and co-creator of their BBC Radio 4 series, Daphne Sounds Expensive. He currently hosts the comedy podcast ‘BudPod’ with fellow comedian and Footlights alumnus Pierre Novellie.
Andrew Hunter Murray is an English writer, podcaster and comedian.
Lou Sanders is an English stand-up comedian, writer and actress. Since beginning her career in comedy, she has appeared regularly on panel shows and performed on Live at the Apollo. She also appeared as a sidekick on Mel Giedroyc: Unforgivable and was a contestant on the sixteenth series of Dancing on Ice.
Rachel Sarah Parris is an English comedian, musician, actress and presenter. She hosts the satirical news show Late Night Mash.
Olga Alfredovna Koch is a Russian-British stand-up comedian, writer, and actress.
James Michael Harkin is a British podcaster, television host, and television writer. He is one of the four regular hosts of the podcast No Such Thing as a Fish, together with Dan Schreiber, Andrew Hunter Murray, and Anna Ptaszynski. He was also a presenter of the BBC Two television show No Such Thing as the News. He is a researcher for the television show QI, where he has been both the head researcher and the head writer.
Anna Rosemary Ptaszynski is a British podcaster, television host and television writer. She is one of the four regular hosts of the podcast No Such Thing as a Fish alongside Dan Schreiber, Andrew Hunter Murray, and James Harkin. She was also a presenter of the BBC Two television show No Such Thing as the News and is a researcher and writer for the television show QI.