Angus Deayton

Hislop: 'Merton never liked Deayton'

Ian Hislop has said that he used to get on with Angus Deayton but fellow Have I Got News For You panellist Paul Merton never liked the host.

You may think that rock and roll musicians in particular are in no need of being satirised, as they do the job pretty well themselves. Well, that doesn't mean they aren't ripe for a bit of a ribbing. Matt Lucas, himself no stranger to making the michael out of rock gods with David Walliams in Rock Profile on BBC2, hosts this chronological countdown of the best of the mickey-takers.

Step forward Neil Innes with his tales of Rutlemania; Harry Shearer, who turns the amp all the way up to 11 with Spinal Tap (surely the definite send-up/homage) and the Hee Bee Gee Bees... remember Meaningless Songs (in Very High Voices)? They had Angus Deayton among their number but got Richard Curtis to write the lyrics. Not bad.

Quite why Stella Street is here is a bit of a mystery to me - just because Phil Cornwell and John Sessions get to practise their Mick and Keef voices doesn't make it satire.

Plenty of great music, a few lightly tossed anecdotes and - voila! - an hour of high-quality entertainment.

Comedian Rob Brydon to host Would I Lie To You?

Comedian Rob Brydon is to replace Angus Deayton as presenter on the new series of BBC1's panel show Would I Lie to You?

Get Angus Deayton to chair it, get David Mitchell and Lee Mack as team captains and Bob's your uncle. Or is he?

Tonight's possible whoppers in what is very sadly the last in a howlingly successful series include the notion that when David was little he used to dress himself as an 18th century nobleman.

Possibly even funnier is his rant at team-mate Michael McIntyre for inadvertently helping the other side by asking the wrong sort of questions.

They've also cunningly managed to shoe-horn in an astounding clip of the oddball art of bottom reading. It has very little to do with anything but it's so funny, who cares about details like that?

There are many reasons to distrust this panel show, and not just because the participants spend most of their time lying through their shameless celebrity teeth. There's the suspiciously enthusiastic laughter that follows each of host Angus Deayton's excruciating autocue segues; the fact that the format is essentially that of a slightly ruder Call My Bluff (Call My Guff, if you will); and the baffling 'futuristic' set that makes the panellists look as if they're sitting behind pulsating tubes of Fruit Polos. It should be rubbish.

Instead, amazingly, it's a blazingly silly, raucously shambolic joy. And the off-the-cuff guffaws come think and fast. Let nonsense-based battle commence.

David Mitchell is fast becoming king of the panel game. He's scarily good at them, so it's no wonder he's called on to lend his wits to shows from QI to Mock the Week, and from Have I Got News for You to a Radio 4 show called The Unbelievable Truth that's not a million miles from this.

This is the one where he and Lee Mack are team captains and Angus Deayton is chairman. The contestants have to bluff their way through various tales while their opponents work out which are true. So, for instance, did Gabby Logan really once steal red liquorice from Madonna's dressing room? Under close questioning from Rob Brydon it looks less and less likely. And is the mystery guest really Logan's former gymnastics rival, Mack's swimming teacher or, in fact, Robert Webb's ex-girlfriend?

Brydon and Mitchell make a great pair and what could be a stilted format is saved by some brilliant interplay and Brydon's flights of fancy.

Back for a new series, this hugely entertaining panel show is a variation on Call My Bluff based on the simplest of ideas. Each team member reveals a peculiar or embarrassing personal fact. The other team is allowed to cross-examine him or her to decide whether or not it's true. It features an A-list of good-humoured and quick-witted liars. With Angus Deayton caught in the crossfire, it couldn't get much better.

Angus Deayton and a host of guests return this Friday with a second series of Would I Lie To You? the comedy panel gameshow that constantly evokes memories of the Charles and Eddie hit from 1991.

If you haven't seen it before, think Call My Bluff without the archaisms and with laughs.

Off The Telly Review 2002

The high profile sacking of Angus Deayton from his role as host on Have I Got News For You has left the BBC with something of a problem. As with many shows, the topical news quiz worked because of a specific chemistry that had built up over many years between the presenters.

Have we got news for you - you're fired

One of the many news articles reporting that long-time HIGNFY host Angus Deayton has been sacked.