Paul Merton

It's back and Friday nights make sense again. Nothing starts the weekend in quite the same way as this half-hour dollop of headline-based sarcasm, joyful meanness and unashamed unpleasantness. It's the best way to unpack the accumulated stresses of a working week. Some of the guests might occasionally be dull, like those terrified politicians who try too, too hard to be funny, but what the heck, team captains Paul Merton and Ian Hislop have seen it all before and the pace never flags.

Making her debut as host is Clare Balding, newly anointed National Treasure after stints commentating on the Olympics and the Paralympics won her a devoted following.

HIGNFY will likely never rediscover the bite of the Deayton era, yet it does seem to be recovering from the stupor of the last few years, where the panel seemed to favour giggling at YouTube clips over tearing into the establishment (simply pointing at the portliness of Prescott and Pickles doesn't count as political satire). Luckily, due to the tempting target of incapable politicos on both sides of the Atlantic and Paul Merton remembering how funny he can still be, the show is back on the rise. Clare Balding is on hosting duties for this series opener.

Paul Merton / Alan Davies review

Dominic Cavendish reviews Paul Merton at the Vaudeville Theatre (two stars), and Alan Davies' new touring show (three stars).

Paul Merton interview

As Paul Merton brings his frank and funny new show to the West End, he tells Bruce Dessau about the chilling stay at London's Maudsley psychiatric hospital that inspired it.

Paul Merton: 'Laugh? I almost died'

On more than one occasion, Paul Merton has been lucky to make it through the Edinburgh Festival with his life - so, why can't he stay away? He explains the uniquely addictive charms of Auld Reekie.

Unique behind the scenes access to the BBC Fringe

Over 24 days of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe the BBC venue will be jam-packed with familiar faces from BBC TV, radio and online. Nick Grimshaw, Nina Conti, Paul Merton and Nicholas Parsons are just some of the names appearing live at the venue, not only recording shows on site but also taking people behind the scenes to explain how BBC shows are made.

Susan Calman happy to be same-sex marriage role model

Susan Calman can cope with the rapier wit of Paul Merton and Ian Hislop on Have I Got News For You. She can hold her own with Stephen Fry on brainbox show QI [on later in the year].

But the Glasgow comic has no answer for the homophobic abuse she has experienced in her home town.

The last time I saw Griff Rhys Jones on television was during the Jubilee pageant, when he was meandering up the Thames in a motor launch. I thought he looked miserable then, but that was nothing compared to how fed up he appeared presenting the first episode of the comedy panel quiz show, A Short History of Everything Else (Channel 4). Griff's script opened with: "We're off down memory lane without a seat belt ... because we didn't have to wear them in those days" and went downhill thereafter. His rictus smile throughout was almost certainly pain, though it would be more charitable to put it down to professionalism.

It wasn't just the script that was desperate: it was the concept as well. It was as though someone in the commissioning department had watched a couple of episodes of Have I Got News For You on Dave and come up with the brainwave of dispensing with topicality and making a news show that would feel like a repeat the first time you watched it. From round to round, the format never changed; Griff would make some crap gags to introduce a sequence of archive footage before inviting the two team captains - Marcus Brigstocke and Charlie Baker - along with guests Micky Flanagan and Kirsty Wark to make their own crap gags. I guess it was cheap, but it wasn't funny.

Brigstocke looked for a moment as if he thought he had actually wandered on to the set of a HIGNFY repeat as he gave a passable imitation of an extremely grumpy Paul Merton, looking permanently pissed off and not laughing at anyone else's jokes. But, on reflection, he was probably just annoyed he too had let himself be talked into signing up for such a turkey.

Satire just doesn't work on 30 year-old archive footage. Margaret Thatcher gags stopped having any edge the moment Ben Elton started making them in the 1980s. As for the old clips of Elton John having a tantrum and the 70s beer adverts ... For what it's worth, Charlie and Kirsty won by 15 points to 14. The result might seem rather more relevant in five years though, after the show has been repeated a few times.

Homeland's Damian Lewis takes to the host chair of this long-running panel show once again - but don't expect Paul Merton nor Ian Hislop to be any kinder to him now that's he's starring in one of the hottest shows on TV. Meanwhile Glasgow comic Susan Calman will be seeking to prove her quick-fire mettle among the guests.

Paul Merton interview

Paul Merton's latest comedy show promises a little bit of everything. "There's stand-up, sketches, music, magic, variety and dancing girls, although two of them aren't in fact girls... how does that sound?" he asks.