34 SAGA.CO.UK/AUG-MAG I^2018GROOMING: NADIRA V PERSAUD USING STOER AND LABEL M. STYLING: NATALIE READ. THIS PAGE: SMOKING JACKET, OLIVER BROWN, SHIRT, CLAU
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SHOES BASE LONDON. PREVIOUS PAGE: NAVY SUIT, WILLIAM HUNT, SHIRT, CLAUDIO LUGLI; PALE BLUE SUIT AND SHIRT BOTH HAWES AND CURTIS, SHOES, BASE LONDONand it was savage – and yet the politicians
featured would ask for their puppets.
It didn’t cause Thatcher much difficulty...’
Conversely, you could say that by
featuring them, HIGNFY has helped propel
the careers of controversial politicians such
as Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg.
‘Well, Jacob Rees-Mogg... hopefully we’ve
seen him off now. I was quite sharp with
him last time he was on. Boris? The first
time he was on, Ian asked him a few tough
questions, which he didn’t like at all, and it
was actually not very good for him. But
then his friends started telling him he was
really good on that and he realised it
was a good thing to appear to be the jovial
buffoon. It’s worked very well for him. What
sways people is mind-boggling sometimes.’
In any case, Paul isn’t interested in the
politics. ‘The comedy’s the thing.’ You can
see the appeal for him of being back with
his Impro Chums: the subject matter is
unpredictable and he gets to work with
people of his own choosing. He has learned
friendship is the key to a happy workplace.
‘We all know each other so well
that there’s no one-upmanship going on.
That would become a bit tedious.’
One of those Chums is a particularly good
friend – she’s Suki Webster, his third wife.
‘If she wasn’t any good at it, it’d be
terrible. But she was an improviser before
I met her. She did a West End run with
Eddie Izzard back in the mid-1990s, so she’s
very, very good at it. Normally with impro
you can’t really discuss it afterwards. But
now she’s with me, we do the gig together
and our great luxury is we’ve hired
a double-decker coach so we can always get
back to London and sleep in our own bed.
It’d be a strain, otherwise.’Paul has somehow managed to come
up with a ‘job’ that involves getting
paid to mess around with his wife and
friends while saying whatever comes into
his head. You can’t help but think this has
been a long-term goal: he worked in the
Civil Service from the age of 20 to 23 and
it left him fearful of being tied to a desk.
‘I’m still more or less the same person
I was when I first started doing this. I did
a proper job, a nine-to-five in the CivilService for three years, so I know that
feeling of going in to work on a Monday
morning. When I wake up on a Monday
morning and I haven’t got to go to the Civil
Service, already the week’s looking up.
So I’ve still got that playfulness because it
hasn’t been eroded through nine-to-five.’
It’s a playfulness that will be more than
ever in evidence at Christmas, when Paul
will be crammed into a Widow Twankey
costume in the New Wimbledon Theatre
for Aladdin, his first run in the panto season,
though he’s a dab-hand at TV panto. You
sense he’s really looking forward to it.
‘They kept asking me. I went to school in
Wimbledon and grew up nearby. They said,
“You could be a narrator figure or come on
brief ly”. I said, “What about Widow Twankey?”’
It’s classic Paul – his first exposure to
comedy was at the circus, where you could
‘see these adults behave in a way that was
not typical of what adults did – with big
shoes and buckets of water and sausages
and cars where the doors fell off.’
Hearing that many people laughing, he
says, made him want to be part of ‘whatever
the creative force was that made that noise’.
Fifty years later, be it dressing up as
Widow Twankey, playing moody Paul
Merton on HIGNFY or cheery Paul with his
Impro Chums, it’s still what he does.Paul Merton’s Impro Chums are at the
Edinburgh Fringe, 9- 18 Aug, and are touring
the UK next spring (mickperrin.com)Interview
1
He didn’t pass his
driving test until he
was 40.2
He’s not a fashion
victim. ‘Fashion is my
victim. If I didn’t look
down I couldn’t even tell
you what colour shirt
I’m wearing.’3
He can remember
a joke for decades.
‘Somebody came up to
me once and said, “You
did my joke on HIGNFY
last night”. It turned out
I’d done a gig with them
25 years before – and
they accused me of
stealing their joke.’4
The first gag he ever
told in public
involved a policeman
on acid and a man
giving evidence in
court. ‘I was wearing
a big pair of pyjamas,
one of those plastic
PC’s helmets they still
sell at tourist stalls in
London and had a book
in my hand in case
I forgot the words. It
went down a storm.’5
His first TV
appearance was
34 years ago, on
long-lost Channel 4
variety show
Stomping on the Cat.5
THINGS
YOU DIDN’T
KNOW
ABOUT PAUL
MERTON...