He’s Still Got News for You: Paul Merton’s Timeless Comic Edge
By Fred Spanner
For over three decades, Paul Merton has been a mainstay of British comedy, delivering razor-sharp wit with that trademark blank stare. From Have I Got News for You to Just a Minute, he's carved out a unique space as the thinking person’s funnyman, equal parts surreal, sardonic, and savagely clever. Whether skewering politics or riffing on the absurdities of everyday life, Merton’s comedy is as sharp as ever, and he’s showing no signs of slowing down.
After blowing the roof off in 2024, Paul Merton and his comedy partner-in-crime, the brilliantly funny Suki Webster, are storming back to the Edinburgh Fringe. The two improv heavyweights are serving up another hour of pure, off-the-cuff mayhem.
And the show doesn’t end there. If you can’t make the Fringe, you can catch them on tour in the UK this autumn.
Loaded sat down to chat with the comedy legend to see exactly what keeps him powering on.
You’ve just finished your residency at The Comedy Store. I’ve been hearing good things about it.
“We had the most amazing lineup of people. David Tennant and David Mitchell were two of the special guests. Neither had done an improv show before, and Mitchell needed a bit of persuading. He didn’t think he could do it, so I sent him an email and said, “You have done it before, just not at an improv show.” I said, “There’s no parachute, but there’s also no plane. You won’t leave the ground, and we’ll look after you.”
“It turned out he was very good at it, and David Tennant was superb. He was so anxious, but anxiety can transcend into an incredible high afterwards, and he enjoyed it in the end. Everyone had a great time. Julian Clary was on, too, and he’ll be making an appearance at one of our Edinburgh shows.”
Didn’t you meet your wife and comedy partner, Suki, at The Comedy Store?
“Yes, but we didn’t get much time to get to know each other then. You turned up with half an hour to go, did your bit, then went home. We didn’t have time to socialise that much. We really got to know each other better when we were touring India in 2004. We bonded over a bad stomach, and Suki had the strange idea that the cure was to drink brandy. I can confirm that’s not a good idea. I think the ‘remedy’ came from the Donald Trump Book of Medicinal Cures.”
Have I Got News For You has been running for an incredible 35 years. I guess with the news changing regularly, you’re never short of new material?
“In some ways, but there are certain news stories that won’t go away. COVID was one, Brexit was another, and of course, Donald Trump. It’s difficult to find new things to say, but if those are the major stories, you have to cover them. We sometimes cover Ukraine, but you don’t want a war story every week, as I think the reason people tune in is to escape from the bad news stories. We have to make sure we’re not concentrating too much on the gloomy stuff.”
With so much doom and gloom in the news, is it sometimes difficult to find the right stories?
“Yes, that’s the way the news works, unfortunately. Like, it's not news if a woman serves mushrooms to her family and they don’t die. That’s an everyday occurrence. News tends to go with the ‘exceptional’, and unfortunately, that sometimes involves things like plane crashes and war.”
Is it harder to be satirical when you’ve got crackpot world leaders pretty much doing the job for you?
“I think Ian is more of a satirist than I am. I tend to get the silly stories, which I much prefer. I think I’m more of a light relief. Ian straddles both camps as he’s a journalist and a comedy writer. With Trump, you can’t make anything up that’s worse or more unbelievable than what he’s actually done. I can get a bit fixated on him because it seems that no matter what he does, his supporters still get behind him. It’s an extraordinary mindset.
“Trump said many years ago that he could shoot somebody in the street, and his supporters would still say that it didn’t happen; the person just shoved bullets into their own chest. But America has always had a streak of madness in it. Back in the 1980s, there were numerous American preachers claiming, “Give me all your money and you’ll go to heaven.” And people did! Whether they got to heaven or not, only they can say.
“I think it’s to do with wanting a strong leader and having them tell you what to do, and what to think. It’s very odd. The gun laws are extraordinary. No matter how many school shootings they have, they still don’t ban guns. We’re drifting off topic a bit…”
Haha, so let’s discuss who your favourite guests have been. I was trying to think of that activist you had on, but I couldn’t remember his name.
“Swampy! Yes, he was on with Neil Hamilton, I think. He’d heard of me, but not Neil. I think he turned round at some point and asked who he was. I think when you meet someone whom you deeply admired when you were a teenager, it’s something special when you meet them as an adult. Spike Milligan and Peter Cook, for example. They would stand out as extraordinary people that you couldn’t quite believe you were sharing a screen with.
“I was a huge fan of Victoria Wood, and it would have been lovely to have her on. I think she was asked, but maybe it wasn’t her thing? I think most people we wanted to get on the show have been on it.”
Roy Hattersley was given three chances, I believe?
“Yes, I think it was the third time Roy Hattersley was asked to come on the show and then cancelled with a few hours to go, that the producer called me and said he was going to be replaced with a tub of lard. I thought he was joking until I got into the studio and saw it sitting next to me.
“We just about made it work. It was an inanimate object, but I loved the fact that they gave it close-ups now and then.”
I’m really getting into Merton and Webster’s Motorhoming Show on Channel 5, but one thing I noticed early was that you were navigating while reading a map. It’s been a while since I’ve seen someone do that.
“It may have been production that suggested I look at a map, rather than use a satnav. I’m by no means a map reader, but I don’t have a mobile phone. Satnavs can be misleading, especially on motorways. I think they’re okay if you’re on a fairly familiar route, but maps tend to show everything you need to know. It’s probably better these days, with updates and stuff.
“There’s actually a map-making company in Central London that’s been there for over 200 years. I wonder how they’re doing? The great advantage of a map is that the battery doesn’t run out.
“It was a great show to do, and they captured what we’re really like. They put GoPros everywhere, and you forgot they were recording most of the time. So everything you see is how we really are. We’re not putting on an act.”
The size of those bloody Motorhomes, though. There’s not much room for other traffic.
“They are big, but it doesn’t take long to get used to them. When you’re going down a narrow country lane, the vehicle coming towards you has to back up. The only problem is when you meet another Motorhome. It gets easier, the more you drive it.”
And fewer wing mirrors lost?
“Yeah, that’s inevitable until you get into your head the width of the thing. I think the first hour was the only time we had any injury to the vehicle.”
When it comes to performing comedy, are you able to switch off easily if you’ve had a shit day or is it harder to make people laugh?
“Yes, I can switch it off. I’ll give you an example. In my stand-up days, back in the 80s, I was at the Bearcat Club, which was highly popular with comedians in those days. I’d been dumped by someone earlier that day, and I was feeling a bit pissed off. I started doing this gig, and about five minutes in, it was going really well, and by the time I came off stage, I felt great!
“Comedy doesn’t work just for the audience, it’s for you as well. If the audience has been entertained, you feel great, too. I don’t remember ever starting an improv show thinking, “I don’t want to do this.” Even if you were thinking that you can’t walk on and say, “Fuck the lot of you! Now, can I have a suggestion?”. Cos, yeah, they’d soon give you a suggestion!
“If I did feel bad before a show, I would mask it, and the very nature of what I was doing would take me away from it. So, it’s a kind of therapy. It’s an escape, or a substitution.”
You’re off to the Edinburgh Fringe, then on tour with Paul Merton & Suki Webster's Improv Show. How long did it take you to come up with the title?
“We were going to go with James Cagney and Elvis Presley presents’, but unfortunately, someone else has given that title to their show. I guess they have to be self-explanatory in about six words. So you’ve got our names and the fact that it’s improv, and it’s a show. So, I think we got everything in.
“I don’t think we had an argument over the billing. I even suggested alphabetical order, first or last names, I don’t mind. I think it worked out all right.”
Where do the ideas come from when you’re doing improv?
“Sometimes the audience suggestions can be familiar, such as a movie style, but even that can be different depending on where they’ve set the scene. Sometimes you ask for a line of dialogue or a surreal situation, and immediately the joke comes into your head. I can’t think of any, because the problem with improv is you don’t tend to remember what’s gone on in any one show. If I did, I’d probably have thirty years of improv stuck in my head.
“If you’re working with other people, they can sometimes come up with the idea more quickly. It’s a bit like a tennis match, in a way. The rally keeps going. If more people join in, it quickly becomes a doubles match. What I also like is that when I’m not on stage, I can sit back and enjoy what’s happening as much as the audience can.
“I guess it’s just years of experience at tuning into something and finding an idea. Where it comes from, I don’t know. Some people say it comes from Swindon, but I’m not sure.”
Do you prefer the weirder audience suggestions?
“I don’t think there’s any hard-and-fast rule in comedy. Generally, it’s better if they’re not being surreal, as they’re kind of doing the work for you. Like, if they say, “A duck making a political speech,” …Oh no, wait, I think that could be quite funny, actually. Quacking away in a sincere, pompous manner.
“There are suggestions we don’t take. Like when someone says “Abattoir.” People say things they're scared of. You’d be miming killing animals, so, no.”
Any advice for new comedians?
“When I started out, I booked a church hall for two weeks. I did 12 shows really close together, and I learnt so much from it. Much more than if those shows were spread out over a year. If you’re doing a gig every six weeks, you don’t remember what the last one was like, but doing them close together, you can remember to change things that didn’t work more easily. It was a crash course in confidence.”
Finally, tell us something scandalous about Ian Hislop.
“Ian Hislop? He once spent five years at Spearmint Rhino working under the name of Lulu Maguire.”
With music from the ever-brilliant Kirsty Newton and a guest appearance from improv royalty Mike McShane (yep, him), The Merton and Webster Improv Show is set to be a riot of glorious nonsense.
Paul Merton and Suki Webster’s Improv Show runs from 7th to 17th Aug at the Edinburgh Fringe. Tickets for this and their autumn tour are available at Paulmerton.com.
