I’m not here to impose my personality… I don’t need to interrupt
Motormouth broadcaster Paul Merton makes a surprising confession as Room 101 returns to its spiritual home on the radio. But the alternative comedy star hasn’t gone soft. Like the silent films he reveres, context is everything
AS ONE of the early champions of alternative comedy, Paul Merton was part of the revolution that helped banish sexist, racist comics from mainstream TV and smokefilled working men’s clubs in favour of more socially conscious, political humour. Now four decades on, while his surreal sense of humour and razor sharp wit remain, the 65-year-old is firmly part of the comedy establishment himself, having entertained fans of the BBC’s topical quiz show Have I Got News For You for a staggering 33 years.
He continues to be a regular on Just A Minute, first appearing on the cult improvisation show in 1989, and has recently relaunched a new series of Room 101 on Radio 4, where it began 31 years ago.
Chuck in the lighthearted motorhoming documentary he fronts with wife Suki Webster, and Merton is busier than ever. All of which is why he values his free time so highly. “I always think it’s a measure of success to not have to work every day,” he says.
“I did a nine to five job for two-and-a-half years going into the same office every day, seeing the same people, sitting looking out the window at the beautiful sunshine.
“Lots of people are glad to have that work, because it’s better than being unemployed, but I’m glad that I’ve found alternative employment.”
For someone so at home on the screen, it’s surprising to learn Merton is not a big watcher of television. He tends to watch documentaries and property shows. Indeed, once he gets started, he reveals a distinctly nerdish streak.
“I always like looking at other people’s houses,” he smiles. “But other than that I tend not to do a lot of it [TV watching]. I don’t even follow the news much.”
EQUALLY surprising is the fact that, for someone who specialises in verbal linguistic gags and comedic banter, he is an avid and thoughtful fan of classic silent movies from a (mostly) gentler age. His fascination stems in part from their enduring popularity. “The visual joke is something that has a bigger impact on us I think than a verbal joke. We remember visuals better than we remember words,” he explains.
“When Charlie Chaplin first started making films in 1914, they were ten minutes long with no real plots, just people kicking each other up the a***, firing guns – bizarrely in a silent film – and yet within ten years, they developed into an art form where highly-skilled, big budget films were being made.
“Chaplin became one of the most famous people in the world. His status was extraordinary. I don’t think we see comedians in quite the same way as we did with him back in the 1920s.
He was compared to Michelangelo and Shakespeare and Beethoven – giants of the arts.
“That was an extraordinary journey in the space of 10 years – from making a film in a park with somebody dressed as a policeman, to the extraordinary masterpieces he made. The Chaplin films, the Buster Keaton films, are coming up to 100 years old, but the best of them still work.”
Like Beethoven or Shakespeare, then? “Yes, and that’s what I’ve really enjoyed – how good silent comedy can be,” he continues. “It needs to be seen on a big screen and with a live audience and musicians. When you do that, people are knocked out by how good it can be.
“There’s a Harold Lloyd film called Safety Last! with the image of him hanging off a clock. The last half-hour as he starts climbing up this building is one of the most potent half hours of film you’ll ever see. The audience gasps.
“At one point a mouse runs up his leg, he’s dancing on a ledge trying to get rid of this mouse. It has such a huge impact on the audience that it is extraordinary. I’ve had screenings of it where people have shouted, ‘No!’.
“They get really involved in it in a way which you don’t so easily with modern cinema. I think it’s because there’s no sound so you have to concentrate on the image.Also if you have a live musician, they are a bridge between now and when the film was made.
“A skilled accompanist can change how the film comes across. Sometimes a film can be more wistful, or it can be more dramatic. We always think of a film as a fixed thing that can’t change, but in silent comedy it can.”
Merton speaks just as effusively about his own work and his desire to keep it high-quality. It’s clear the return to the radio of Room 101 – named after the torture chamber in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four which contained “the worst thing in the world” for each victim – seven years after the TV version was cancelled by the BBC after 24 years.
It had been revived from 2012 to 2018 with Frank Skinner in the chair, and the single guest replaced with a
panel of three competing to get their objects or concepts into Room 101.
The latest incarnation sees a welcome return to the one-on-one format, which Merton believes engenders fascinating insights into the lives of famous people, as they consign their pet hates to the oblivion of Room 101.
Coincidentally, the comic and broadcaster was the very first guest in the show when it launched on Radio Five in 1992 with Nick Hancock presenting. It moved onto the TV after just two years and Merton himself hosted from 1999 to 2007.
Despite his big personality on other shows, today he says he’s happy at times to take a back seat and keep his wisecracks to himself and just listen to his guest offering revealing sides to themselves in a way he thinks does not happen on typical chat shows.
“The guest is always the focus of the show, so hopefully you get a sense of their personality coming across because I’m not imposing myself on it,” he says. “I’m trying to give them a platform to reveal a bit more of their personality than they might otherwise do.” The current series features Claudia Winkleman, Julian Clary, Steph McGovern, and comedians Phil Wang, Mark Steel and Desiree Burch.
So how does Merton feel the original format of radio, with no visual clips and props and no guest interaction, stands up in comparison to the TV incarnation?
“It initially started on radio as a one-onone interview, so it’s another way of doing an interview with one celebrity,” he says. “You don’t often get those on TV these days where one person is interviewed over the course of half an hour, so I was pleased to be able to revive it. We actually record for 45 minutes.”
The star, who reveals he has turned down his own chat show, admits that he prefers the intimate setting of recording with just him and his guest in front of a close-by audience at a theatre, with no obtrusive cameras or microphones. Nor pressure on guests to plug their latest project.
INDEED, on one previous occasion on the television version, guest Johnny Vegas admitted to an addiction to internet chat rooms – revealing he had once spent 24 hours online chatting to strangers under a pseudonym and running a virtual pub
“Normally, I’ve kind of got an idea of where the guest is going to go, but this time I didn’t,”says Merton. “He talked for about 10 minutes on this thing, and I didn’t interrupt because it was just so fascinating to hear this obsession with creating this parallel universe where he was running a pub online.” He continues: “One difference between TV and recording for radio at a small theatre was how well it was received by the live audience.With radio, the mikes are very discreet and there’s no cameras and camera operators between you and the audience, so there’s much more of a connection.
“I was keen to record them in theatres where the audience feel much more connected to what’s happening on stage. It felt very comfortable and very familiar.”
That familiarity occasionally provokes gems.
“If the guest is being really entertaining, and interesting and informative, then I don’t feel the need to interrupt,” he says. “If they’re going somewhere I’m not expecting I’ll still go with that, because the point of the show is to learn about the personality of the person that you’re talking to. People find it therapeutic.
“When we had Claudia Winkleman on for this current series, she talked so brilliantly that I didn’t need to interrupt that often – not that it would have been easy anyway – but it’s all good for the show.”
Merton, previously married to Caroline Quentin, and whose second wife, Sarah Parkinson, died of cancer in 2003, once made travel documentaries on China and India, although he has grown to hate airports. These days, he’s more likely to be found pootling around the Lake District or New Forest for his Channel 5 motorhoming series with wife and fellow improviser Suki.
“It’s great fun.You can be on a caravan site that overlooks a magnificent castle or has a beautiful mountain view,” he enthuses.
The pair, who tied the knot in 2009, live a quiet life in Sudbury, Suffolk.Indeed, familiar and comfortable, but still exciting, appears to sum up both Merton’s work and life, be it on enduring long-lasting shows that have retained their appeal thanks in a large part due to his comic genius, or avoiding the hassle of flying and enjoying a beautiful British view with his wife and a cool drink.
● Room 101 is on Radio 4 at 6.30pm on Wednesday evenings and repeated on BBC Sounds