WHAT’S the best thing that ever happened to Have I Got News For You? As TV programmes go, it hasn’t changed that much since the first series with the exception of losing its host.
And, in hindsight, waving goodbye to Angus Deayton (last seen presenting, not very well, Hell’s Kitchen) gave HIGNFY a new lease of life. Although the format of the programme gives it so much to work with every week, the nature of news is that it is often repetitive.
So by injecting another unknown into the mix every week, the programme has become that little bit more unpredictable, and all the better for it.
What makes this season of HIGNFY (BBC 1, 9pm) all the better is that the most unlikely people have become the best hosts. What’s the secret to doing that well? Having a sense of humour certainly helps, but making sure you have Paul Merton on side appears to be the key.
Which is probably why Anne Widdecombe died on her arse last week. Apart from reading the script far too slowly, she failed to click with Merton who, in the end, almost looked like he didn’t want to play. That’s the first time in a while I’ve seen that happen – it threatened to do so once with Boris Johnson, but the bumbling buffoon was such a, well, bumbling buffoon that Merton couldn’t help but laugh.
Comics who also think they can bring a bit of their routine into the programme also tend to make we want to switch off. That’s you Omid Djalili. If you can’t make with laugh with your clever use of words, doing a funny dance won’t rescue you either.
To that end, the top 6 of presenters to grace the HIGNFY chair this season goes like this:
1. Kirsty Young: More than happy to go with the flow, and just laughs with Merton
2. Jo Brand: Mistress of self-deprication – knows how to crack a joke in appallingly bad taste and get away with it.
3. Alexander Armstrong: Must better at this than anything else he does on TV
4. Michael Aspel: Seeing another side to a presenter is what this programme is all about.
5. Ann Widdecombe: Just seemed not to get it.
5. Omid Djalili: It will take something particularly ba d for him to avoid being bottom of this list at the end of the series.
Clive Anderson, one of the sharpest brains in comedy, hosts tonight. For Merton, that sounds like a challenge.
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