Paul Merton happy with Have I Got New For You election special

Paul Merton is glad the ‘Have I Got News For You’ team won’t look "silly" with the upcoming election special.
The upcoming episode – which will be hosted by Alexander Armstrong – will be recorded on the morning of December 13 to ensure that the panel know the results of the UK’s General Election the previous day, after they struggled in the past by filming before the votes had been tallied.
He exclusively told BANG Showbiz: "We’re recording on the morning after the election. We go out on a Friday, so we’ll be there at Elstree Studios for 10 o’clock in the morning in front of an audience – hopefully they’ll be there.
"At least we’ll know the result, because we have in the past had election specials where we’ve recorded it on the night the election closes, and of course we don’t know the results. We look a bit silly, so at least this way we know how it’s gone."
In recent years, headlines have been dominated by Brexit and Donald Trump but Paul – who has appeared opposite fellow ‘Have I Got News For You’ team captain Ian Hislop since the show’s launch – wants topics to evolve for the sake of comedy.
He explained: "For the first time in the run of ‘Have I Got News For You’, we’ve had two stories that haven’t gone away – which have been Brexit and Donald Trump.
"For a long time, there was nothing new happening within those stories, but now we’re obviously in the middle of a General Election, Trump is in the middle of an impeachment enquiry. At last, those two stories have moved on from the rather frozen position they were in before.
"But it’s generally better if the news does move on because there’s only so many jokes you can make about the same subjects."
Meanwhile, the 62-year-old star has appeared in a countdown of ‘The Top 10 Most Watched Films You Have Never Heard Of’ as part of BFI’s ‘Britain In Film’ campaign, which has been funded by the National Lottery.
Paul added: "It is the most extraordinary archive the BFI has. It’s over 10,000 films which are free to watch if you go to the BFI player and type in ‘Britain In Film’. Without the National Lottery money, this wouldn’t have been possible."
‘The Top 10 Most Watched Films You Have Never Heard Of’ are free to watch on the BFI Player now.