If HIGNFY isn’t funny any more, what is its function?

[Angstinmyspanx]

Is it to remind us of a happier time when it did used to be funny. And are we just not ready to let that go?

I don’t think it will stop drawing in viewers. I think we all still watch it.

It was Roy Hattersley that was replaced by a tub of lard.

At the end of the day it’s a satirical show based on the week’s news, it’ll depend on the topical subject of the time. Politics just isn’t very controversial these days, it’s pretty easy to take the piss out of! The JFK joke was quite on the nose.

You sound like a barrel of laughs. Maybe you should go on the show? Pick up the pace a bit …

I still think it’s funny but I do think Paul Merton has checked out.

This smacks of comment-scraping for news articles.

I've never thought it was very funny.

Paul and Ian’s contributions are why I still watch it; we do need more satirical topical shows on broadcast tv, imo.

It’s one of the few things on TV that can still make me belly laugh at times. I don’t find much else that funny these days, even the latest Alan partridge series barely raises a smile

People are always accusing me of that! Lazy journalist must be my mumsnet persona!

There isn’t much satire on tv. Is it somewhere else?

We still get Private Eye - I read it more and more for its investigative journalism.

I enjoy it, if you don’t plenty of other choices. There are loads of shows I’m not keen on, but plenty of other people like and that’s absolutely fine.

Just on the point of satire not being very good generally at the moment, The Times has produced this today: https://www.thetimes.com/magazines/the-times-magazine/article/what-royals-did-in-2025-by-month-qkvgbxmm8

All the comments underneath are raving at how on the nose it is! (I don’t get it!).

I watch it with my DS and it varies a lot in terms of laughs, which is down to the guests and the host. The recent one with Alexander Armstrong, Ross Noble and Helen Lewis was very funny; and in fact there is an old episode with Guz Khan as host (and Ross Noble) again that we watched four times because it was so hilarious. If the guests are a Tory peer and a weak comedian we don’t bother watching as it’ll be an inevitable yawn fest even though Paul Merton does try his best

The one this series with Julian Clary on Paul's team was one where Paul was on great form and not dialling it in like he was last night where I think he was a bit bored as that Finlay guy was not very funny and the RRC is neither funny or insightful. When they have the right mix of panel and a good host it really is brilliant. Most MPs don't make good panellists.

Julian Clary and Paul Merton are very good friends, aren’t they?

I still enjoy it, comfort watch I suppose and sometimes still really makes me laugh. The obligatory man/woman ratio really hacks me off though. Always one token female guest (apparently not required if the host is female) - why so impossible to have two female guests once in a while?

It used to be edgy and relevant. But the fact its completely ignored one of the most dangerous and ridiculous things that has ever happened just shows how irrelevant and ideologically captured it has become. Like most of the BBC unfortunately.

( Hint: MEN CANNOT BECOME WOMEN...)

Most of the time Paul Merton looks like he doesn't want to be there - doesn't even deign most guests' jokes with a smile. And if they do happen to make a cracking joke, he'll try and top it. It's a horrid habit for a comic, and once you've noticed it, it's hard to un-see.

A couple of weeks ago, he didn't speak (or at least wasn't in the edit) for at least 6 or 7 minutes of the start of the show.

Last night felt like an old-fashioned sausage-fest. Hannah Frye was excellent, but it was pale, male and stale otherwise.

Sadly I think it's run its course. Not a bad innings, but the format is tired and at least one of the regulars seems to want out.

Maybe YouTube? They have Spitting Image though I wasn’t too impressed.

Paul Merton did leave one, didn’t he?

In the old days, people didn't have so many options so it felt like 'everyone' watched it. What else was there to watch at 9pm on Fridays in 2000?

When we look back, it's quite hard to be objective about whether the thing has changed, the world/context has changed, or we have changed.

It still gets decent viewing figures, presumably?

I think he had a breakdown and took some time away for mental health reasons. That was a very long time ago though - 1990s?

It’s past its use by date, now laboured and stale.

It seems to me much more obviously scripted these days than it used to be. Some of the guests are quite wooden in how they deliver their feeder lines.