FESTIVE TV PICK LET’S BE HAVIN’YULE

You’re back to host festive one-off special Al Murray’s Make Christmas Great Again. How are you planning to bring back the magic for TV audiences? OH songs, guests, prizes, celebrities, Honey G... Oh and a robot reindeer. We’ve got a game called Wrong Answer, where the contestant has to give you the wrong answer.

We’ve a game called Robot Reindeer Radio, where we put a celebrity on a bucking bronco reindeer and see how long they last. So that sort of stuff with festive prizes. YEAH, it did, actually. I’m normally one of those people that if I hear Christmas songs in a supermarket, you know, in November, I get the hump. I’m like, ‘What are they doing that for?’ I always think you should start in December – that’s not asking too much is it? But we were playing a Christmas album to get the audience in the mood on the way in, and I started to feel quite Christmassy. THAT’S a good question. I don’t know.

An ability to cope with being in the panto, which is six shows a week, two shows a day? Enough gas in the tank to make that work. You’ve certainly made it work in comedy – It’s been 20 years since you started out. Do you still enjoy it as much as you once did? MORE so, to be honest, because when you start out people don’t know what to make of you and they don’t get the jokes necessarily. You have to explain yourself.

But once you become a bit more established, that kind of goes away.

I’ve got it worked out now; I know what I’m doing and that’s what’s fun about it.