Who is Loyiso Gola? Meet QI's latest star

The nation’s favourite quiz series, QI, is back for a brand new series on BBC Two from Friday, September 6th.

Currently hosted by Bake Off’s resident comedian Sandi Toksvig, the new season will welcome comic faces new and old to the panel show.

First up in episode 1 is longterm contributors Alan Davies, Sarah Millican and Jason Manford. But there’s a newbie on the QI scene joining them for series 17.

Loyiso Gola may be new to QI, but the South African comedian is a seasoned veteran of the comedy scene around the world.

Here’s everything you need to know about Loyiso!

Who is Loyiso Gola?

Loyiso Gola is a 36-year-old comedian and TV presenter from South Africa.

He was born on May 16th, 1983 in Guguletu, Cape Town. Loyiso moved from Guguletu to Woodstock at the age of 14 and continued to move around South Africa as he grew up.

Loyiso found his comic feet at high school where he was introduced by a teacher to the Cape Comedy Collective. And with that group, Loyiso managed to shadow some of Cape Town’s best comedians from the age of 17 onwards. When he graduated from high school in 2002 Loyiso began his journey into solo stand up.

The same year Loyiso graduated, he also won the Sprite Soul Comedy Tour.

Comedy must run in the Gola genes, as his younger brother Lazola is also a comic!

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Loyiso the Netflix star

Loyiso quickly broke into television after his standup career began. QI isn’t his first gig!

His big break was hosting a satirical news show called Late Nite News with Loyiso Gola, which earned him an International Emmy nomination in 2013.

But 2019 was a big year for Loyiso as on January 1st he had a standup special released on streaming giant Netflix.

Loyiso was one of the featured South African comedians on Netflix’s Comedians of the World series.

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https://twitter.com/loyisogola/status/1079635605011730432?lang=en

Follow Loyiso on social media

Loyiso already has a huge following of over 1 million on Twitter @loyisogola. Here he posts all of his touring updates, TV specials plus everyday banter, as you would expect from a comedian.

He also regularly posts to his Instagram, where he has far fewer followers.

Check out his Insta profile here.