HAS HE GOT LAUGHS FOR YOU
Paul Merton knows the healing power of comedy – it helped him cope with the death of his wife. So who better to pick the funniest stories of all time?
Comedy is an escape,’ says Paul Merton, who has been making people laugh and forget their worries for more than 30 years. ‘It is very popular in bad times.’ He knows just how troubled our times are, as a team captain on the popular topical comedy show, Have I Got News For You. And now Merton has put together a book of 80 comic short stories called Funny Ha Ha, with old masters like P G Wodehouse appearing alongside new voices from around the world. ‘Each of the authors in this book creates a world you can escape into. When we’re laughing, good chemicals flood through our brain; nothing else exists. It takes us somewhere, momentarily. That’s got to be a relief.’
The comedian and writer also appears on BBC Radio 4’s Just A Minute, makes highly acclaimed travel documentaries and was once voted among the 10 greatest British wits of all time, alongside Oscar Wilde (who we all know is Irish) and Noël Coward. He found personal refuge in comedy when his wife Sarah passed away in 2003, at the age of just 41. ‘She died on a Monday. Six days later I went down to The Comedy Store to watch the Sunday show, just to be in a room where 300 people were laughing.’
Merton and producer Sarah Parkinson had been married for 12 weeks before her death from breast cancer. ‘It goes back to that thing about the release, the relief, it takes you somewhere else.’ A week later, Merton got up on stage again himself. ‘I would have done a gig earlier after Sarah died but I didn’t want it to be misinterpreted as somehow not caring.’ They say laughter is the best medicine, but the 62-yearold performer says making people laugh can also be a healing experience. ‘When you’re improvising and you’re in the moment, it’s as refreshing for you as it is for the audience. Plus, we have the extra joy of creating that laughter. In my more romantic moments I think there’s no higher calling.’
Born Paul Martin, the son of a Tube driver and a nurse from Fulham, he changed to Merton for Equity reasons. After doing stand-up in The Comedy Store since 1982, his big break came in 1988 with the improvisational Channel 4 show Whose Line Is It Anyway? But just as things were taking off, Merton was admitted to the Maudsley psychiatric hospital for six weeks after a breakdown caused by a combination of overwork, the postponement of his Channel 4 series and anti-malaria pills. ‘I was in a room for group therapy after breakfast every morning. There was somebody who had been kicked out of their council house. Somebody else said his daughter was heavily into drugs. All these terrible things were happening to them. My thing was that somebody had cancelled a television series. I never said that in the session, because I knew, “That’s awkward.” I still had a sense of proportion and a sense of humour about it.’
He comes across as a confident performer, so it’s a surprise when he admits that for a long time, he felt like an imposter. ‘I used to feel like I didn’t have permission to do this. It’s a working-class thing, which if you’re not from that background is very difficult to understand.’ After more than 500 shows, having been asked to compile some of the greatest comic writing of all time, is he finally starting to relax about that?
‘Yes,’ he says with a smile. ‘Some days I think I might actually be allowed to do this…’
Funny Ha Ha: 80 Of The Funniest Stories Ever Written, selected by Paul Merton, is published by Head of Zeus on November 14, priced €35