Having been a huge QI fan for as long as I can remember and having listened to innumerable podcasts from the 4 QI Elves [the fact and information gatherers for the show] who set up No Such Thing As A Fish 5 years ago, I was really looking forward to being able to sit down and enjoy their company live, and learn a few new and hitherto unpublished facts and anecdotes about topics multifarious. The premise of this show, just as QI is too, is to dole out interesting, unusual, quirky, and funny facts about anything from a pin to an elephant as the saying goes.
However, I really have to register how unbelievably disappointed I was by this evening. The show was in two halves, and the first half was more or less completely pointless. It consisted of the 'leader' of this quartet, Dan Schreiber, in self-congratulatory and vainglorious manner, telling us about his efforts in getting one of their podcasts on to the Moon, whilst all four of them pitched ideas about how they thought they could take 'No Such Thing As A Fish' to the next level. They had acheived radio, TV and now theatre fame and popularity, and so the whole of the first half of the show was given over to each of the four selling their own pitches for where to take 'the Fish' next. The four pitches were a film, a pop song, a political party and I can't even recall what Dan's pitch was now! However we were not given the opprotunity to vote on any of these ideas, and they all were basically very unfunny (a couple of jokes in there, but a distinct lack of facts!) and all were delivered in the same complacent and somewhat egotistic way.
In the second half, they recorded their latest podcast live. This is something I found unacceptable. The whole idea of a podcast is that you can listen to it in the comfort of your own home at any time. The whole point and purpose of a live stage show is to see, hear and become involved with these 'Elves' in a completely different and more tangible manner. I felt cheated. They are using their stage show to record podcasts, thus as far as they are concerend killing two birds with one stone. How dare they! I wanted something different, something unique, something that only I and my fellow theatre-goers would be privvy to.
The podcast followed exactly the same format as all the others I had listened to, and had 4 facts, dissected and ameliorated by the four who had done their prior research on the topics. We learned about Execution Ballads of the 17th century, The comparative bite strength between a finch and a T-Rex, where the most polluted city in the world is (Kampur, India), and the weird dog laws of Beijing. Oh, and the fact that there is now only one public toilet left in the whole of Manchester!
Leaving the theatre was something of a nightmare too, as both rear doors of the stalls auditorium were shut and we all had to make our way through the side ones. This caused huge blocks and delays in exiting and there was no announcement or apology for this. The reason though was clear once out in the foyer, as the 4 had set up a table for signing and merchandise blocking the front door exits. Not very thoughtful or audience friendly!
Sadly I was both underwhelmed and disappointed by this show, and I feel that if I had been new to 'Fish' then I wouldn't have stayed for the second half and wouldn't have been inspired by them in any way. QI will still remain a firm favourite of mine, but am uncertain whether or not I shall continue to listen to the 'No Such Thing As A Fish' podcasts now I have 'met' them in the flesh!
Reviewer - Matthew Dougall
on - 17/3/19
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