So Unbelievable

Another week, another episode of The Unbelievable Truth being recorded. And again I was there (this is starting to get repetitive!). It was a Sunday this time, so there was plenty of time to get there without having to combat the rush-hour commuters. C and I arrived in plenty of time to join the group of people waiting outside, before the real queue formed behind us. We were let into the foyer promptly at 6pm, as the ticket said, which bade well for the rest of the timings being bang on time.

So the real waiting began.

Normally I would have spent some of thins time seeing if I could spot any potential panellists entering the theatre. This time my surprise had been somewhat spoiled by David Mitchell having posted on Twitter the previous day who the panellists were going to be. Nevertheless, they were all good names and so although I knew who to look out for, I was still excited to see them. First to arrive was Miranda Hart, who snuck through the doors as we were waiting outside. Sue Perkins arrived just as we’d been let in, followed not long after by Arthur Smith, who tried to get in through the wrong door. Finally Sean Lock walked in to complete the set.

We were let into the theatre and took some of the unreserved seats in the front row. I had thought when in the foyer that it seemed more empty than usual, but sitting and looking at the rest of the auditorium confirmed this, as there seemed a lot more empty seats than usual. Not that that was going to stop us enjoying the show – we’d just have to laugh even more than normal.

At 7.30 producer Jon Naismith appeared on stage to begin the introductions. Regular readers of my blog may have noticed that I’ve perhaps been focusing rather too much on this and the ‘genuinely funny joke’, so I’m going to say little apart from it was all good, as always. I will, however, point out that Jon preceded his jokes with a comment on how he was aware that some of us who go to these things regularly may have heard his jokes before (I wonder where he got that idea?), then proceeded to tell both the Doctor and the POW jokes (I still like the Goldfish one best!).

The panel were then introduced on stage, along with David Mitchell and the scorer, Abby. And so the recording began. It was another single recording instead of the two shows like last time. But I really didn’t mind as it was far and away the best, most enjoyable recording of The Unbelievable Truth I’ve been to. It seemed like hours of fun, and I’m glad I don’t have to select which bits make the edit for broadcast.

As usual, I won’t say much about the content, to save spoiling it for those listening later. However, I will say that it began well, with Arthur Smith completely missing the point and spotting lies not truths. He did get the hang of it later. There was quite a bit of ribbing of David Mitchell for not knowing everything, with much comparison to the all-knowing Stephen Fry and QI. As there’s been more than a few mentions of The Unbelievable Truth on QI recently, it seemed a far exchange.

Finally I must mention the buzzer incident – half way through the recording the buzzer stopped making a noise. The panellist’s lights were still lighting up on the box, but with no sound (not very useful for radio!). Very quickly someone leapt on stage to fix it, I think by replacing the box that makes the noise with another one. And so the game was able to continue. I’ve never known anything like that to happen before though.

And so, sadly the evening ended and we all made our way home. I could gladly have watched another show with that panel, but will have to make do with listening to the broadcast of the series which begins this evening.

Oh, and making the fourth and final recording on Thursday!