'I never liked Deayton anyway', says Merton
Have I Got News For You star Paul Merton said losing Angus Deayton as the show’s host was “not a big deal” – and admitted he never liked him anyway.
Merton said he couldn’t care less who replaces Deayton in the presenter’s chair because the job is so easy that anyone can do it.
Deayton was sacked from the show last year following tabloid revelations that he romped with prostitutes and took cocaine.
Interviewed on Parkinson, Merton said: “I sometimes feel like the Marx brothers losing Zeppo – it’s not a big deal.”
Asked about a replacement, he added: “Just get somebody who can read out loud and sit in the middle. It doesn’t bother me.”
The comedian said the on-screen animosity between him and Deayton was genuine.
“We weren’t friends particularly,” he said. “People sometimes think that people in showbiz all live together in a lovely house, Dale Winton’s doing the cooking and Judith Chalmers is upstairs clearing out the drains or whatever.
“But we didn’t really get on. But it worked for the show because there was an animosity there and that was OK.
“I get on with Ian (Hislop) a lot better than I did with Angus really, I like Ian.”
Merton said he and Hislop supported the BBC’s decision to sack Deayton because keeping him on would have compromised the show.
“The show would have finished,” he told interviewer Michael Parkinson. “The person in the middle can’t do jokes about Jeffrey Archer if people then say, ‘Yes, but what about you’.
“It’s not going to go away and every guest that’s going to come on is going to mention it and then it’s a nightmare.”
He even tried to persuade Deayton to resign in the last show before his sacking.
Merton and Deayton will go head-to-head at Sunday night’s Baftas where they are each nominated for best entertainment performance for Have I Got News For You.
The comic quipped: “If he wins, we know how he’s going to celebrate, don’t we?”
He added: “It would be odd if he won it this year, I would say. I think possibly if he wins I’d get up on stage before him, grab the Bafta and make a run for it.”
Several names have been mooted for the HIGNFY host’s job, with comedy actor Alexander Armstrong – one half of comic duo Armstrong and Miller – the front-runner.
But Merton, who stepped in to host the first show after Deayton’s departure, said he would “love” to present it full time.
:: The interview will be screened on Parkinson tomorrow at 10.35pm on BBC1.
