Question Time (Part 2 - the big match and Twitter analysis)

So we made our way to the studio and few lazy keenos now decided this was the time to squeeze past us. The cheek! Once seated, the floor manager came on and explained a bit more, like when to clap and when not. It's a complicated intro - Dimbley does his bit to camera and you'll want to clap we were told. The music starts and you'll want to clap. Dimbleby will introduce each panellist and you'll want to clap. But no, you must wait until you get nod. He ran through the end and instructed us not to be reaching for our coats and putting them on as there'd be audience shots all the way behind the credits. And then he asked for a few volunteers to do the mock panel. Once again, it was a nice mix of normoes and weirdoes. I had read on the other blog that everyone who volunteered for the panel featured in some point during the programme, and aside from one woman, that was true in this show too.

There’s a camera in the middle, you can nearly make it out against the black. I felt like it was on me the whole night.

It wasn't.

We ran through (quite a long) rehearsal of questions and debate on two subjects completely unrelated to what was going to come up: the Peace Bridge and the three miles to school controversy and childhood obesity. They do something completely different so that you don’t back reference yourself in the actual recording “Well, I said earlier” kind of thing. It was fairly lively debate and something everyone had a view one. For my part, even though I had things to say (like it being a mindset thing about the bridge, or more impolitely you were outside the three mile cut off, now you're not, tough luck. The same rule applies across NI, of course it's bloody fair.) I practically sat on my hands for fear I'd be drawn in to the debate and then later, forget about the national TV bit. No likely, but you never can tell.

After the mini debate, the head of audience (ok, I don't know what her title was) came out and read out the names of the people that'd be asking the question. It was mine and Richard's view before I went that they can't make you ask a question. That's probably still true, they can't make you, but they can make it really difficult for you to get out of it. As each name was read out I stuck my fingernails into my hand. I really didn’t want to ask a question.

The woman called the camera and sound people to the front to mark on their studio plans where the people are sitting. The first name was read out, and she had to stand up while they marked it down, then she had to come out to get her typed out question. Then the second and so on. There was no chance for you to say quietly to someone in charge 'actually, I'd really rather not/my voice has gone/I can't be on TV as per the court injunction'. Thankfully as we went through the list my name wasn't there. Breakdown on national TV averted!

There were six questioners and one warm up. The questions weren't announced to us so they were as much a surprise to us when they were read as they were to the panel. When Dimbleby came out he said that we weren't doing the warm up question anymore, he'd just do a general warm up. He introduced the panel and they came into applause and then once they had their microphones on (which was somewhat of an ordeal for Martina Anderson in her green dress - she had to go off stage to get the wire underneath it. Awkward.) Dimbleby asked what their big news stories of the week were. Martina Anderson said the celibacy thing, Owen Paterson said the economy, Nicola Horlick said the euro and Nigel Dodds said the boundary changes. We never heard Diane Abbott's because Dimbleby led the discussion along those lines. Dodds gave a politician's answer of 'we're looking at the situation closely'. Abbott was a bit more candid, saying that she didn't believe she was in trouble from MPs  from slated constituencies but would wait and see. There was discussion with the audience about Gregory Campbell and the East Londonderry seat and boom, we were ready for the off.

Apparently it was Owen Paterson's first time on Question Time. Bless him, it showed.

Dimbleby did his intro and we waited to clap. And waited. And waited. And then we clapped. And sure enough the first question came from the first questioner, the warm-up questioner was cut. It's a cut-throat business, this TV malarky.

Like I said before, I was quite aware of the cameras and, based on the other blog that I had read, I was conscious of making any vigorous head movements or massive facial expressions lest they be picked up. But I was also aware of what I applauded for. This is actually quite difficult because you’re so used to joining in with applause because everyone else is clapping and not actually thinking about it.

During the recording I kind of lost the order of who was asking what, but by the end it was clear that warm-up lady wasn't the only one to be cut. There was guy in front of me and one behind who were to ask questions but nada. It was only when I saw it go out that night I realised the warm-up lady did get to ask a question, the one about priest celibacy (or someone wussed out backstage and she was happy to read their question). I thought it probably was the weakest question of the night, not really anything to do with politicians (or investment bankers in Horlick's case) and had all the potential to descend into the abuse scandals which isn't wholly related to celibacy. On the way out I asked the guy who had had the last question what it was going to be on - the Orange Order and the disciplinary action facing Kennedy and Eliot because of Ronan Kerr's funeral. What? Firstly no 'funny' question?! Secondly, I'm not sure that's exactly what I understood when the woman on the phone said my question had to be main stream and of interest to everyone in the UK.

After it was over we had to watch the panel leave before we could. Incase we accosted them in corridor I expect.

Afterwards I read the tweets on the #bbcqt hashtag. It seems the general feeling of the night was the audience challenged the panel and came off the victors, with great tweets including “Again, it needs repeating – the Northern Irish are definitely brighter than the panel” and “Entire panel (especially the rabbit-eyed Tory) outgunned by informed and eloquent audience”. I don't really think I can take any credit for that. Some people didn’t like the celibacy question and there were a few that made comment of the fact that the questions were generally not NI centric questions. There were a lot that didn’t like the fact that the audience seemed to be liberally minded. I don’t know about that, like I said earlier, we had to declare who we voted for (and who we would vote for in GB). There were people that were allowed to watch from behind the official audience seats (don’t really know how they snuck in), but they weren’t allowed to clap or respond in any way because it would only skew the response.

The real hits of the night on Twitter were Paterson’s ‘rinky-dink’ description which had someone tweeting “Thanks to Paterson’s “rinky-dink”, I now have the Pink Panther theme song stuck in my head”. There was also his rather unconvincing appeal during the first question on public service strikes to remember "We're all in this together". Twitter was all over that. And course there was Martina Anderson’s hair, I’m surprised it wasn’t trending on Twitter. My favourite tweet of the night was “Everyone on #bbcqt is talking…very…slowly. It’s the debating equivalent of doing big writing to make an essay look bigger”. 

Seriously, if you don’t watch Question Time with the commentary of the hashtag running alongside, it’s like you’re only getting half the experience. There were lots of funny (and sometimes quite rude and mean) comments on there.

When I watched the show back I was pleasantly surprised at how little you saw me. Like I said above, I really did feel like the cameras were right in front of me. But these shots were about the best you saw of me all night.

Look! There I am, right up at the top there.

No, I don't think a 'hello mum' sign would go down too well with the producers. Or the security people for that matter. They're not known for being big fans of a comedy sign.

Jeez Nicolai, way steal my limelight there. 

Oh and that bit Dimbledore said at the start about running straight through turned out to be a lie. At one point during the Libya question he called on someone whose hand was raised 'on the gangway' and on TV we saw a young man in a red check shirt speak. Well I can exclusively reveal that actually it was the guy beside him who was being called on. But he said he'd pass to his friend whose hand had been up longer. Dimbleby said it was very polite or kind or something and then his friend spoke. None of that exchange made the programme. Not surprising, it wasn't wildly entertaining, and I suppose they want to stop other people from doing it in other recordings. Pretty much everything else he said was true, especially when he said the hour would go really quickly. 

Oh and looking silly talking while your hand is still up. But we probably knew that already.