Sandi Toksvig's last News Quiz, review

During Toksvig's nine year stint as host, Radio 4's The News Quiz has gone from strength to strength. She'll be missed, says Michael Hogan.

Sandi Toksvig: BBC denied me host role because I'm a woman

Outgoing News Quiz presenter says her gender was the reason the corporation didn’t choose her for Have I Got News For You 25 years ago

Sandi Toksvig creates Women's Equality Party

Comedian Sandi Toksvig has revealed that she quit BBC Radio 4's News Quiz to set up a new political party named the Women's Equality Party.

Who will replace Sandi Toksvig on The News Quiz?

Radio 4 is looking for a new host to present its long-running panel show. We assess the runners and riders.

Sandi Toksvig, Jo Brand & Maureen Lipman in fundraiser

They are joined by comediennes and 'token man' Stephen Mangan at the Royal Court for the Women of the Year Foundation.

The News Quiz (Radio 4, Friday), Britain's longest-running series in this genre, is also the lead offender in terms of bad topical comedy. Worn smooth by nearly 40 years of regular airtime, it is now as cosy and predictable as pie and mash; to my knowledge it hasn't caused a sharp intake of breath since 2011, when the host, Sandi Toksvig, made a pun about a four-letter-word.

Listening to the current - 86th - series, I've become convinced that if technicians programmed a computer with a wide-ranging set of News Quiz input-output rules ("Middle East peace talks = joke about Tony Blair"; "Education cuts = ironic reference to Eton," etc) and fed it the week's current affairs, they could accurately predict the show's scripts.

The only curveball in this week's edition was that regular panellist Jeremy Hardy had been asked to chair, as Toksvig was off sick. This seemingly humourless move had been singled out as a rich source of in-joke material by the writers. "I am the host this week because Sandi has been suspended for biting the producer's knees when her pre-show herring was not chilled to the correct temperature," Hardy began (Toksvig is 4ft 11in and from Denmark). He later returned to the theme during a limp segment about genealogy: "everyone on this panel will have a little bit of Scandinavian in them; could everybody just make sure they haven't sat on Sandi?" Unsmiling, I added "ST absence = joke about smallness + Scandinavia" to the list.

Radio Times review

A slumbery round of the gently filthy information exchange, livened by a shake-up in the scoring system. We're playing Lucky Losers, this being Series L, which means klaxons are good, clever right answers are to be avoided and Alan Davies has to find a new way to come last.

With L also standing for lavatory this series, the best banter focuses on bottom-wiping: there's a terrifying lesson on which leaves to avoid when caught short in a Queensland forest, while Jeremy Clarkson and Sandi Toksvig bond over the impermeability of boarding-school loo roll. If that all sounds a bit vulgar, wait until you hear what Lillie Langtry once said to Edward VII.

Sandi Toksvig marries partner Debbie

Sandi Toksvig and partner Debbie have converted their civil partnership to a marriage - in their third wedding ceremony.

QI confirms special one-off show at University of Kent

A special one-off version of hit BBC TV quiz show QI is to be held at the University of Kent as part of the institution's 50th birthday celebrations. The line up will include regulars Alan Davies, Sandi Toksvig, Jo Brand and Phill Jupitus. Stephen Fry will not be present, but his place will be taken by the show's creator and producer, John Lloyd.