Paul Merton

Why HIGNFY hits the target even after 20 years

When they first appeared on BBC2's risky new show Have I Got News For You, Ian Hislop and Paul Merton, aged 29 and 32 respectively, were young, dangerous, and at the cutting edge of television satire.

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Incredibly, this is the 20th anniversary and the 39th series of the BBC's flagship entertainment programme - the only entertainment programme that is consistently and genuinely entertaining. Paul Merton's unstoppable flow of surreal invention never seems to dry up, while Ian Hislop must be one of the few people on the planet who can appear on television suffering from a burst appendix and still manage to be funny. With an election looming, the big challenge of the new series - according to Richard Wilson, head of comedy at the production company Hat Trick - will be "to take the spectacularly dull things that politicians say and get laughs out of them". The host tonight is Lee Mack, with Alexander Armstrong and Jo Brand booked to appear later in the run.

On a Thursday? Are schedulers messing with our minds? Is this an April fool? Since time immemorial Have I Got News for You has been a fixture of Friday nights, like crowds outside pubs and kebabs on the pavement. It boots us into the weekend with a flurry of vicious wit, surreal satire and cheap jokes at the expense of John Prescott's figure. It's our pressure valve on the end of the working week, allowing the nation to let off steam and laugh at our betters, while wondering where Paul Merton gets his I'm-wearing-this-for-a-joke shirts and noting the steady advance of Ian Hislop's chins. To plant it on a Thursday seems like sacrilege, until you remember that tomorrow is Good Friday, so the weekend sort of starts here. Let's hope series 39, which starts with Lee Mack at the helm, can keep up the standards.

It's series 39 of the topical panel game and tonight's headline is: HIGNFY has transferred from its traditional Friday night to a new Thursday night slot.

HIGNFY might be billed as the comedy quiz that grills celebrity contestants on the week's top news stories, but we all know it's an excuse for team captains Paul Merton and Ian Hislop to make jokes at the expense of everyone else on the show. Stepping up this week are Nigel Farage MEP, former leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party, and Scottish comedian Kevin Bridges.

Bridges is likely to give as good has he gets. But Farage may find that political barracking is no preparation for the heckling he could get from the HIGNFY team.

Comedian Paul Merton's love for the giants of early Hollywood comedy is well known. But here he goes back in time and crosses the Atlantic to focus on the earliest pioneers of cinema, who were very much European. From the Lumière brothers' first publicly shown film - of people coming out of a factory (look out for the dog!) in 1895 - and the master of early science-fiction (and double exposure) Georges Méliès, to the British film-makers who used music-hall stars like Fred Evans for little shorts that would slip in between variety-show acts, it's a world of daffy charm and playful experimentation. And perhaps the programme's greatest gift is the light it sheds on one of the most influential of silent comedians, Max Linder (above, right with "disciple" Chaplin). Linder's life ended tragically, but his dapper exploits are a real joy.

Paul Merton searches for the roots of screen comedy in silent cinema. But it's not Hollywood that interests him here; it is pre-1914 Britain and France as he looks at screen stars back then, and examines the pioneering techniques of the time. And, not content to stay in the background, Merton conducts cinematic experiments of his own.

I chose the film's title knowing that in most TV listings it would be shortened to Paul Merton's Weird.

Paul Merton criticises Bristol festival director

Comedian Paul Merton has criticised a Bristol film festival director after he was dropped from this year's event.