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Back in the early 90s I had been very excited to be invited along to the BBC Radio Light Entertainment party and be rubbing shoulders with radio stars, past, present and future, but for all the Beverley Sisters and Nicholas Parsonses (actually only one of him, I think, though clones would explain how he has kept going so long), the most exciting attendee for me was Paul Merton. I had seen him do a stand up slot in an obscure TV stand up show a few years before and been blown away by his ability to ad-lib a whole routine based on a random cheer from an audience member at the mention of some odd concept or disease (it involved a bus loads of fans of eczema - or whatever it was- coming to the studio, delighted to get a mention).
Buoyed by alcohol I finally went up to Merton and stood near him awkwardly, smiling at him as he talked to some luminary from radio history and then told him how great I thought he was. I don’t recall what I said. I was too drunk. I was much to shy to have approached him under any other circumstances. The next year, similarly drunk, I sidled up to him again. Did he remember me from before? We had another short and awkward conversation, he surely having no idea who I might or even might not be and then I disappeared again. It became a yearly tradition for me that I would go and talk to him, only when drunk, never outstaying my welcome and then melt back into the crowd. Five years later, when I was on TV myself, I got a letter from Paul congratulating me for getting my own show. My silly fanboy attempts to engage had made some impression on me and he, at least, didn’t hate me.
I am lucky enough to have worked with Paul a few times more recently on Have I Got News For You and Just A Minute, two programmes that I long dreamed of being on, but were made even more special because I got to sit at the same desk as Merton and engage with him, not as an equal, but at least as a colleague.
So I was thrilled when he agreed to be my first guest of the new series of RHLSTP and although I thought about being drunk and weird all through the chat, I decided to make do with being weird. I had been extremely impressed by his funny and rather moving autobiography
“Only When I Laugh” and he was even more impressive in the podcast I think. Like many comedians he takes his work very seriously and doesn’t always suffer fools gladly (though did so at those LE parties, thank goodness). My only tricky choice was as to whether I just let him tell the stories of his life and of the early days of alternative comedy, or if I chucked in loads of emergency questions, which I knew he would be excellent at. I concentrated mainly on the former, which I think was the correct decision, but he didn’t disappoint when I lobbed in a few of the latter. I hope he enjoyed it as much as I did, though that seems unlikely as I enjoyed it a ridiculous amount.
I won’t include too many spoilers, but it was very special to see him recite, pretty much verbatim, his policeman on acid routine, which was his signature bit when he started out.
My other guest was Joe Thomas, who I had only met in passing before (I believe that pre-Inbetweeners he and Simon Bird had done their Edinburgh photos in the same studio as me just before I had mine done in 2007ish). He was charming and funny and joined in gamely as I released all the tension of having been on best behaviour with Merton and got back to my disrespectful, idiotic best. Thomas and I come from similar backgrounds, both the sons of teachers, both with 2:1s from University, both starting up in student revue, both growing up in towns beginning with Che. For me it was a bit like looking back at a more successful version of myself, for him looking forward to a possible awful future if things went horribly wrong for him. Which they didn’t seem to be.
I had watched his new show, “White Gold” this afternoon. Though I hadn’t realised that all six episodes were on iPlayer and had watched the final episode thinking it was the opener (and amazed at how bold they had been in terms of not establishing either situation or characters), but to be fair the iPlayer had put the sixth one up when I did the search. I then watched the first episode and to be honest, it made a lot more sense. Try to watch narrative drama in the correct order was my takeaway lesson.
Thankfully the audience showed up, in spite of recent events. We only obliquely mentioned it when I referred to Trump’s shameless misinterpretation of the fine words of the Mayor of London. As Paul Merton had observed backstage, people wanted to get on with their lives and comedy has a part to play in that as an escape from the stupid fucking world (my words not his). Paul speaks movingly about laughter’s power to help us escape awful events in his book. If you’re laughing you’re not thinking of anything else. We did lots of laughing tonight.
I am delighted to be back doing these shows. I feel incredibly lucky to have chanced across and accidentally created this job. Looking forward to the rest now.
