SO MANY questions, so little time. I'd been pencilled in for a 15-minute audience with Paul Merton and, never having met him before, was a tad anxious about the encounter. Renowned as a modern-day comic genius, the 41-year-old Londoner carries more baggage than the average national airline: his spell in the psychiatric hospital, a very public marriage break-up and an ill-advised fetish for remaking "classic" comedy shows that stopped being funny long before Merton himself became a civil servant in the Tooting Bec Employment Office back in the late '70s.
Of course, it's not all bad. There's also Have I Got News For You, the phenomenally successful BBC satire show - currently in its 15th series - with which the sullen Merton visage has become synonymous. In the company of opposing captain, Private Eye editor Ian Hislop, and a host of special guests from the worlds of showbiz, literature, politics and the media, Merton has been omnipresent (with the exception of one series where he bowed out and was replaced by Eddie Izzard), seated two chairs to the left of anchorman Angus Deayton, mercilessly scything down newsworthy sacred cows, top dogs and lame ducks with his inspirational barbed ire.
His trademark frown is conspicuous by its absence, however, as he cheerfully shakes my hand shortly before the launch of the fourth Murphy's Cat Laughs festival, of which he is one of the star attractions. With time at a minimum, we get straight to the meat of the matter with a question that's been bothering me for some time now: his Tony Hancock remakes. Why? They were funny back in the '50s (I'm told), but surely as we hurtle towards the 21st century they should be left alone to die of natural causes.
Surprisingly, Merton concurs: "Actually, I agree with you. It was put to me as an idea and I spent a year wondering about it and in the end I decided to do them simply because I'd be working with the writers Ray (Galton) and Alan (Simpson), and that was a big thrill for me. So that's why I did it. I think some of them were alright and others were a bit ropey. Overall, though, I thought the best ones were good."
Despite its own occasional ropiness, many would argue that even the worst episodes of Have I Got News For You are nothing short of excellent. Indeed, such has been the success of the BBC 2 show that it has spawned a number of mutants, including the appalling sports quiz, They Think It's All Over, the mildly amusing musical equivalent Never Mind The Buzzcocks and RTE's typically shambolic endeavour Don't Feed The Gondolas. Is Merton of the opinion that HIGNFY remains the best of the genre?
"Well, it's been nominated for another BAFTA which is quite impressive when you consider it's been going for eight years," he avers proudly. "I think that because its raw material is the news and the news is changing constantly, that helps to keep it fresh. I think it still works very well. There have been an awful lot of panel games recently, but I don't think all of them will be commissioned for a second series."
Most, if not all, of which have merely been pale imitations.
"Well, take the advertising one, The Best Show In the World . . . Probably - which, incidentally, I think is a very bad title, even if what you got was the best show in the world. You see, I don't really think people care about advertising. It is quite amusing to see an advert from 1956, but there's not enough there to build a programme around. I think, because of that, the show wasn't a particular success."
What about They Think It's All Over?
"Well, that's sport, and lots of people really love sport. Never Mind The Buzzcocks is the same with music - there's something there to hang the quiz around. You don't have that with advertising."
Has Merton ever seen Don't Feed The Gondolas?
"Somebody mentioned that to me today, yes," he grins. "I've heard nothing but bad things about it, but I can't comment on it having never seen it. But it seems nobody's got a good word to say about it."
For a supposedly light-hearted quiz show, the verbal jousting on HIGNFY is nothing short of gladiatorial, with both Merton, Hislop, and indeed Deayton (although his input is largely scripted, as both team captains are ever eager to point out) pulling few punches in their attempts to outwit each other. Is it fair to say, then, that there is a certain amount of animosity between the two skippers?
"Not really, no. I get on well with Ian. There is a certain amount of showbusiness animosity but I like him a lot," Merton expounds. "I mean it is competitive while it's on, but if it was a very funny show and I lost, I wouldn't spend the rest of the night in a bad mood. Having said that, I'd rather if it was a very good show and I won . . . that would be ideal (laughs). You play it for real while it's going on, but, at the end of the day, you don't allow it to affect your mood."
Surprisingly, given the nature of HIGNFY, to the best of Paul Merton's knowledge, only one person has ever taken the show to court: erstwhile Tory MP, Rupert Allison (aka thriller writer Nigel West). My interviewee smiles at the recollection. "We'd said on the show that some Conservatives thought he was a conniving little shit. So he sued and lost (laughs). It was hilarious. I'm almost certain he's the first person ever to take us to court. I remember we had to issue an apology once because there was some suggestion that Michael Winner's underpants were less than pristine (laughs), but the Rupert Allison thing was interesting because it was a jury: 12 good men and true, you know, saying 'Yes, okay, you are a conniving little shit' (laughs)."
As someone who makes a living out of ripping the piss out of others, is Merton himself able to take criticism?
"You know, I can't complain," he muses. "I have had bad reviews, but I don't religiously read them. There was a terrible review of something I did in the Evening Standard a couple of years ago, that I never saw, but I heard was very bad. I've never confronted anyone who's said anything bad about me, I think that's a mug's game. People are entitled to their opinions and I think the bottom line is that I'm happy with what I've done. I mean, I've got rave reviews for stuff that I thought was shit, so it cuts both ways."
One personal episode which earned Merton more than his fair share of less than flattering column inches was the break-up last year of his marriage to actress Caroline Quentin, best known for her roles in Men Behaving Badly and Jonathan Creek. The disintegration was gleefully reported by various publications in the English gutter press, their editors anxious to exact their revenge on Merton after years of suffering at his hands on television.
"It was awful," he says drily. "Anyone who's been through something like that knows who painful these things are. And to have journalists camped outside your door for a week . . . well, it's difficult. It feels like you're under siege so it's impossible to ignore. It becomes a bit of a game for the journalists, a bit of a chase, so you find yourself in these bizarre scenarios where you're in a speeding car going down the road and somebody's chasing you. It's all very, very uncomfortable. It makes what's an unpleasant time very difficult."
It probably doesn't help when Ian Hislop starts making fun of it on prime-time national television.
"Well I can't say that's not fair (laughs). I never complained about it because I've got no defence at all, given the nature of the show. Nor can I complain about the press being interested."
Does he still talk to his ex-wife?
"No, no, I can't really get into all that," he mumbles. "It was quite traumatic, y'know, but eventually it fades."
Indeed, maybe it's bad karma, but Merton has had to endure plenty of trauma, including a couple of spells in a psychiatric hospital. Was it a nervous breakdown, or is the man just pigstick nutty?
"It wasn't really a breakdown, it was what was called a manic episode," he explains. "I was writing my first series for Channel 4, with a friend of mine, and I was also working on a show called Sticky Moments, with Julian Clary, at the same time. I was doing Whose Line Is It Anyway? too, so it was an awful lot of work to do and I was very, very excited because I'd always wanted to have my own TV show and it was finally happening for me. Plus, I was going on holiday to Kenya and I was taking an anti-malaria pill, the name of which I can't remember, which should save you a lot of legal trouble (laughs). But there's been a number of reports on these pills and they do have side effects on the brain and can make you get quite disorientated. I think it was a combination of all these things together which led to me getting increasingly more manic.
"So, yes, I was in this psychiatric hospital for a number of weeks and at the time it was quite difficult. It was some National Health place that didn't have much funding, and the fact that I was on television meant that other patients recognised me . . . that was quite tricky. But the psychiatrist I was seeing didn't watch television and thus didn't know who I was, so when I mentioned that people were looking at me in strange ways he wasn't really believing me. I said 'If you look in the TV Times you'll see that I'm on on Friday nights at 10:30 on Channel 4'."
No doubt it was a case of the shrink patting the comedian on the head and going "Of course you are", while simultaneously making a mental note to check on the availability of padded cells.
"(Laughs) Yeah, absolutely! It was very odd. But in a way there was a lot of good that came out of that as well because it gave me a level of detachment about showbusiness. I know a lot of people whose egos are immense because they confuse showbusiness with real life."
But surely, for them, it is real life.
"Well, yes it is, I suppose. But I know of one guy, whose name I don't really want to mention, who was talking to a friend of mine at a party and he was saying 'Well, it's very unusual for me to be out of the house. It's the fame thing: wherever I go I get no end of hassle from strangers'. I mean, this guy had some crappy show on Channel 4. People are hardly going to mob you on the street on the strength of that (laughs)."
How did Merton cope with the stigma attached to mental illness?
"There is a huge stigma attached to the whole mental health thing, but I think that maybe when people saw me in there it became alright," he explains. "There was people in there for all sorts of reasons: people who were schizophrenic, people who had lost their houses or been through a divorce, whatever. We used to have these group therapy sessions every day and people would come out with these sad, poignant stories, and my only gripe was that my Channel 4 series had been cancelled.
"A doctor pointed out to me after a couple of weeks that I 'wasn't sharing' anything with the group and I said 'Well it doesn't mean anything to them. Compared to all the other stories it's not a great tragedy to have a television series postponed'. I think that's why I used to hover shyly in the background."
So it wasn't a case of him treating Group Therapy with the kind of withering contempt HIGNFY viewers would expect?
"Oh no!" he protests. "I was in twice. I went in for 10 days originally and when that was up they said I was fine and that I could go. So I started getting involved in work again and the motor began running too fast, so I went back again, this time for six weeks. After a couple of those six weeks I was sort of okay because I'd calmed down and stopped working, which is what I needed to do. But I didn't come out for another month because they didn't want to let me go too early, as had happened on the previous occasion. I used to volunteer for courses that they used to have, just so I'd have something to do during the day. I was sort of biding my time. I was never sectioned under the Mental Health Act, but I knew it wouldn't look good if I discharged myself."
How difficult is it to resume a career as a comedian after an incident such as that, or indeed the break-up of a serious relationship?
"Well, you can't go on HIGNFY and not try to be funny," Merton reasons. "That's what I'm there to do. If your car breaks down and you phone up the AA and they say 'I'm sorry, but the guy covering your area has a very difficult domestic situation at the moment so he really can't look at your car', you're just going to say 'Well what the fuck has that got to do with me? I need somebody to fix it!'. In the same sense, you can't be the tortured clown.
"Actually, I remember doing a gig once when I'd just split up with a girl I'd been seeing for three or four months. I was the one who got the boot, which always makes it worse, but I did this gig that night and the crowd were great, so after about ten minutes I forgot completely what had happened that day and came off the stage feeling, y'know, pretty good. I think being a stand-up comedian is the only job in the world where that would happen."
Does Merton believe that the line between madness and comic genius is a fine one? After all, his hero, Tony Hancock, was a bit loopy.
"Yeah, he seemed to be quite tortured and worried himself sick about stuff that there just aren't answers to, like 'Why are we here?, What's life all about?, Why are they laughing at me?'. For a comedian, that's a very bad question to ask (laughs). You should just be thankful that they are laughing. I mean, why is yellow yellow? You can't analyse something like that because it just falls to bits."
When I ask Merton if he thinks the madness stems from the comedy or vice versa, he stares at me, at length, in total bewilderment. Following a pause so pregnant that I consider ordering warm water and towels from a passing waitress, he begins laughing. I rephrase the question: does he give a shit whether the madness stems from the comedy or vice versa?
Still laughing, he replies: "I don't know. I've never thought about it, and if you hadn't asked me about it just now I don't think I'd be thinking about it now . . . or ever! I don't know, I just don't know. There's plenty of mad people who aren't funny and there's plenty of funny people who aren't mad . . . I suppose."
Leaving, I ask Mr Merton what kind of show he has planned for the imminent Cat Laughs festival in Kilkenny. The famous frown puts in a brief cameo before being replaced with a broad smirk: "There's just a couple of weeks to go, mate. I wish I fucking knew." n