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Paul Merton

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Paul Merton
Merton at Ely Maltings, after giving a talk on his book Silent Comedy.
Birth namePaul James Martin
Born (1957-07-09) 9 July 1957 (age 67)
Parsons Green, London, England
NationalityBritish
Years active1982–present
Notable works and rolesWhose Line Is It Anyway? (1988–1993)
Just a Minute (1989–present)
Have I Got News for You (1990–present)
Paul Merton: The Series (1991–1993)
Room 101 (1999–2007)
Paul Merton in China (2007)

Paul James Martin (born 9 July 1957), better known by the stage name Paul Merton, is an English actor, comedian and writer. He is best known as a panellist on the BBC television show Have I Got News for You and Radio 4's Just a Minute, as well as Channel 4's Whose Line Is It Anyway? in the first five series, and as the host of the BBC TV show Room 101 and the ITV improvisation show, Thank God You're Here.

His style is characterised by describing extremely improbable scenarios with a straight, almost serious, face. He rapidly grabs hold of any chance to expand on a subject and stretch its credibility to snapping point. In 2003, he was listed in The Observer as one of the 50 funniest acts in British comedy.[1] In The Comedian's Comedian, a 2005 Channel 4 poll of fellow comedians, he was voted the 20th funniest comedian in the universe. A 2007 poll saw him voted alongside the likes of Oscar Wilde, Spike Milligan, Noël Coward and Winston Churchill as one of the ten greatest wits ever.[2]

Personal life

Merton was born on 9 July 1957 [3] in Parsons Green, London to an English father (a train driver on the London Underground). When his mother returned to work as a nurse, Merton and his younger sister were looked after by their grandfather, who lived with them in their council flat.

He failed his eleven plus, and famously received an unclassified grade for metalwork at CSE before moving on to Wimbledon College, a Jesuit-run secondary school that had just become a comprehensive. His experience of victimisation there as a working-class boy became a frequent subject of his comedy. After leaving school, Merton worked at the Tooting Employment Office for three years.

Merton married the actress Caroline Quentin in 1990, but they divorced in 1998. Merton subsequently had a relationship with comedian Sarah Parkinson; they were married unofficially in a service in The Maldives in 2000, they were officially married three months before her death from breast cancer on 23 September 2003. In an recent interview in the Guardian Paul said that he was currently looking to buy a home in Kent, near his friend Ian Hislop.

Shortly before becoming a household name on Have I Got News for You, Merton had suffered a mental breakdown and booked himself into the Maudsley psychiatric hospital for six weeks,[4] about which he has since talked frankly. In an interview with The Guardian he was reported to have been "hallucinating conversations with friends, and became convinced he was a target for the Freemasons".[5]

Career

Merton often claims that he was inspired to go into comedy at a young age watching clowns at a circus, remembering, "I had no idea that adults could behave like that."[6] He gained his earliest professional credits under his birth name, including an appearance as a yokel in an episode of The Young Ones. On joining Equity he found that the name Paul Martin was already taken, so he renamed himself after Merton, the district of London where he grew up.

Stage

Though he had harboured serious ambitions of becoming a performing comedian since his school days, it was not until April 1982, at the Comedy Store in Soho, that his dream was realised. He recalls that on only his second or third night he found the dour role that has informed his comic approach ever since.

He has been a member of the London improv group The Comedy Store Players since 1985, and still regularly performs with them.[7]

One of these early routines at the Comedy Store involved the report of a policeman who had been given a hallucinogenic drug. This routine was very popular and went on to be included in his television series. Merton recalls, "I walked all the way home to my bedsit in Streatham. I was on a cloud. And that one night got me through every single bad gig after that — and there were a lot of them. I was so lucky to get that encouragement early on. It kept me going over the next eighteen months of just dying the whole time."[citation needed]

In 1986, while performing in the Edinburgh Fringe, he was mugged while helping a friend put up posters. He was kicked in the head and had to go to hospital. A year later, Merton returned to Edinburgh. His one-man show was receiving very good reviews. However, while playing football with fellow comedians, he broke his leg, and whilst in hospital, he suffered a pulmonary embolism and contracted hepatitis A. He lost the £3,000 he had paid in advance for the theatre and would have been in worse trouble had the Comedy Store not held a benefit for him. "I was getting the reviews of my life — they were saying 'Go and see this man!'", he said. "And I was in a hospital bed. They should have said 'Go see this man and take a bunch of grapes with you'."[citation needed]

In 1999, Merton undertook a stand-up tour entitled "and this is me PAUL MERTON". "I did this show on tour last autumn," he explained to one of his audiences.[8] "I did sixty-eight dates. I did shows all over the place: Liverpool, Dublin, Stoke. Sixty-eight dates, two hours per night. Two hours, and not one laugh."

Merton, speaking to Melvyn Bragg at the former's home, explained: "I hadn't done stand-up comedy for about ten years, and it was like I'd never done it. People had no idea I'd been a stand-up comedian; they thought I was born to sit behind a desk and make quips about the week's news."[8]

Merton performed in Paul Merton's Improv Chums at Pleasance as part of Edinburgh Comedy Festival in 2008

Television

His breakthrough as a television performer came as a result of the improvised comedy show Whose Line Is It Anyway? from 1988 onwards, which moved to TV from BBC Radio 4, although he had previously appeared on Saturday Live, performing stand-up comedy. He remained on Whose Line until 1993. Have I Got News for You started in 1990, and two series of his own sketch show, Paul Merton: The Series, followed soon after. In 1996, Merton performed updated versions of fifteen of Ray Galton and Alan Simpson's old scripts for an ITV series, Paul Merton in Galton & Simpson's.... Six of these scripts were previously performed by Tony Hancock. These were very badly received by both critics and public, and although a selection of episodes were initially released on VHS, it was not until June 2007 that the complete series was released on DVD.[9]

Also in 1996, Merton took a break from Have I Got News for You during its eleventh series, making only one appearance as a guest on fellow captain Ian Hislop's team. Merton later explained that at the time he was "very tired" of the show and that he thought it had become "stuck in a rut". Nevertheless, he added that he felt his absence gave the programme the "shot in the arm" it needed and that it had been "better ever since".[10] In 2002, following allegations in the UK tabloids linking the show's chairman, Angus Deayton, with prostitutes and drug use, the host was asked to resign from the show. Merton hosted the first episode after Deayton's departure and was described as "merciless" in his treatment of his former co-star.[11]

In 1999 Merton replaced Nick Hancock as host of Room 101, a chat show in which guests are offered the chance to discuss their pet hates and consign them to the oblivion of Room 101. He hosted 64 editions. In 2007, his final guest was Ian Hislop (himself becoming the first interviewee to appear twice, having also been on an edition with Hancock). Hislop's selections purposely included items that Merton was known to like, such as The Beatles and the films of Charlie Chaplin.[12]

In 1999, Merton starred alongside Ronnie Corbett as one of the ugly sisters in ITV's Christmas pantomime. His other co-stars were Samantha Janus, Ben Miller, Harry Hill, Frank Skinner and Alexander Armstrong.

He was rumoured to be a possible new host of Countdown to replace both Richard Whiteley[13] and his successor, Des Lynam,[14] but decided not to pursue this.

Merton is a keen student of comedy, particularly the early silent comedians and in 2005 Paul became the host and regular guest of Bristol's [Slapstick Silent Comedy festival][[1]] Held annually in January over 4-days Paul hosts a variety of events during the long weekends. In 2006, BBC Four broadcast Paul Merton's Silent Clowns: a four-part documentary series on the silent comedy craft of Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy and Harold Lloyd.[15] Merton examined their respective careers, interspersed with moments from a live show in which he presented clips of their work. Among the audience were many children, who were seeing the performers for the first time. Merton took a stage version of this show to the 2006 Edinburgh Fringe Festival and in late 2007 took the show on a UK tour. A tie-in book was written by Merton and published by RH Books in late 2007. The Independent described it as "clearly a labour of love" but criticised the exhaustive and overly-thorough plot synopses of the films discussed.[16]

Also in 2007 he presented a four-part travel documentary, Paul Merton in China, which was broadcast on Five from 21 May 2007. He has finished filming a new travel series about India.[17] [18]

Merton hosts the British version of Thank God You're Here, which premiered on ITV in January 2008. He is reported to be taking over as host of It'll Be Alright on the Night, an ITV blooper show.[19]

Paul Merton will present a documentary on the early films of Alfred Hitchcock, in a series of star presented documentaries on BBC4.[20]

Radio

In the late 1980s Merton appeared on BBC Radio 4's The Big Fun Show. Between 1993 and 1995, Merton was amongst the regular cast members on the Radio 4 improvisational comedy series The Masterson Inheritance. Besides his regular appearances on Just a Minute, he has also joined the I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue team for the occasional programme. In 2000 he presented Two Priests and a Nun Go into a Pub in which he interviewed British and Irish comedians who had (like Merton himself) been brought up as members of the Roman Catholic Church. In 2009, Merton will start a Radio 4 series in which he reads Spike Milligan's war memoirs in an audio-book fashion. Paul was also named one of three possible replacements for Humphrey Lyttelton in the show I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, after the latter's death.[21]

Awards

After seven nominations for a BAFTA award for Best Entertainment Performance, Merton finally won the award in April 2003, defeating fellow Have I Got News for You star Angus Deayton, who had been dismissed from the show the previous October. He was nominated for the 2007 BAFTA award for his travel documentary Paul Merton in China.[22] In 2008, Merton presented Bruce Forsyth with a BAFTA Fellowship: Forsyth had given Merton his award in 2003.[23]

References

  1. ^ "The A-Z of laughter". Guardian Unlimited. The Guardian. Retrieved 2006-09-10.
  2. ^ Mirror.co.uk: Oscar is king of the wits, 15/10/07
  3. ^ Many sources give a birthdate of 17 January 1957. The date given above is in Who's Who and Internet Movie Database.
  4. ^ mindout - for mental health
  5. ^ Barbara Ellen meets Paul Merton | | guardian.co.uk Arts
  6. ^ Thank God You're Here | ITV Entertainment | Paul Merton biography
  7. ^ http://comedystoreplayers.com/
  8. ^ a b Quote taken from a show on Merton's "and this is me PAUL MERTON" tour of 1999, as featured in The South Bank Show on September 26, 1999
  9. ^ Amazon.co.uk: Paul Merton in Galton and Simpson's...: The Complete Series
  10. ^ The Very Best of Have I Got News for You (2002): DVD commentary
  11. ^ BBC News: Show goes on after Deayton exit
  12. ^ "No Room for Merton". Chortle. 09/12/2006. Retrieved 2006-12-09. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  13. ^ Filling Richard's shoes from Guardian Unlimited: Culture Vulture
  14. ^ BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Holmes and Aspel lead Lynam race
  15. ^ "BBC Four: Paul Merton's Silent Clowns". BBC. Retrieved 2007-05-21.
  16. ^ Cook, William (2007-11-15). "Silent Comedy, by Paul Merton". The Independent. Retrieved 2008-01-12. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  17. ^ Art Of Faith: Taj Mahal? Been there, shot that
  18. ^ Welcome To Natural Events
  19. ^ British Sitcom Guide - News - Paul Merton new host of ITV blooper show
  20. ^ http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/sep/12/television
  21. ^ Humphrey Lyttelton delivers swansong with giant kazoo band - Times Online
  22. ^ Cranford dominates Bafta nominations - News, Film & TV - The Independent
  23. ^ BBC News: Gavin and Stacey scoops TV BAFTAs

Further reading

Bibliography

  • My Struggle (1995) ISBN 0-7522-0353-3 (a spoof autobiography, apparently named after Mein Kampf)
  • Paul Merton's History of the Twentieth Century (1993) ISBN 1-85283-570-2
  • The Joan Collins Fan Club: My Life with Fanny the Wonder Dog: The True Story by Julian Clary and Paul Merton (1989) ISBN 0-333-49926-3
  • Silent Comedy (25 Oct 2007) ISBN 978-1905211708
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