The Book Quiz

So a friend of mine managed to obtain a few tickets to the filming of a new BBC comedy quiz thing, this particular one being about books and literature. I was invited to tag along, and since I hadn't seen these guys for a while I thought it would make a nice context to meet on a Sunday afternoon.

I must say that it was a bit surreal being in a studio audience. Having done the whole telly thing recently I wasn't that taken aback by the size of the studio or how incomplete it looked when seeing the scenes behind; no, what I found strange were some of the instructions given to us while filming.

You know how in television when you see those audience prompt boards? Well it wasn't quite that, but there was a whole session where we were asked to fake applause and laughter. If it came across as unusual as it had felt then I'm not sure how useful the footage will be, but then I'm sure the producers knew what they were doing (more than we did anyway).

David Baddiel was the host of the quiz, and he did a pretty good job. To be totally honest the humour found in the quiz itself was a but too high brow for me (as in I didn't really get much of it), but that was okay since there were plenty of out takes and mistakes to keep me genuinely amused. It's actually quite amazing what doesn't make it to the screen - humour in bad taste, irreverent language and the like, and like I've mentioned before it shatters the notion that those you see on screen are anything but human.

So in short: not a fantastic show to have witnessed but a nice enough experience to have had anyway. Oh, and being a quiz show host seems like blummin' good fun too.