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 think the host has always been scripted, and written for by a team of writers (though the better hosts - e.g. Victoria Coren Mitchell) will ad-lib too.

The other guests I don't think are written for by the team - but often comics will try and crowbar a bit of their routine/set into the banter - which you can spot a mile off. Often MPs will have had someone on their own staff write lines for them, which normally go down like a lead balloon.

When it started, it worked well because Hislop represented the (traditional education) establishment, and Merton was the (non-uni) upstart and both were irreverent. The world has moved on, and both being rich men in their later middle age no longer provides friction - or indeed a mirror to the guests they're supposed to be pilloring.

Is it a dolphin in a bathtub ?

It's been a while since I watched it. The last one I saw had Clive Myrie in the chair and that was a good one.

I have a simple remedy.

Put Angus back in the chair with some of his old funny friends writing his stuff.

Replace Hislop and Merton with younger hungrier performers.

I still watch but agree that it often isn’t that funny. The clips at the beginning of this week’s show were particularly bad, they should bin off the person writing the jokes to those videos. I guess this weeks wasn’t great as the guests were weaker, Richard Coles gives me creepy vibes, not surprised he is a man of the cloth. The young comedian was ok, probably his first appearance on TV so hasn’t really found his feet. Some episodes are still hilarious and it’s worth watching for those.

Yes the smugness of their ‘luxury beliefs’ and rancid detest of working class folk with less progressive or ‘conservative with a small c’ views is galling

and I say this as a 30 year fan and previous Private Eye reader

I wouldn’t wipe my arse with it now and frequently have to turn HIGNFY off when it descends into the now socially accepted ‘Pleb’ hatred

Shame on Hislop really
Merton is shameful also

Why would you continue to watch something if you frequently have to turn it off?

Loyalty
glutton for punishment
part of Friday night ritual
hoping i will be proved wrong
confirmation of my view about London-centric liberal elites and where we are headed

I enjoyed Hannah Fry but of course some weeks are better than others. Same as any
show that has run for decades eg Just a Minute

Well past it's sell-by, it's just embarrassing now. But the BBC do like to really drag things out, even when what they're dragging is a decomposing corpse. Worse though is what Hislop's done to Private Eye. That makes me angry, rather than just cringe.

I think I'm actually just a bit fed up of the same uber wealthy public school boys I was watching as a child still holding forth about their oh-so-important opinions 30+ years later, and expecting everyone to still be so bamboozled by the big words they use that they don't notice they're talking utter shit. Yes, Stephen Fry, this also includes you.

I used to laugh so much at HIGNFY but every joke now seems tired and obvious. Only so many times you can hear the same old, same old about Trump, Farage etc.

And they are not as bold as they used to be. I wonder if various lawsuits have declawed them somewhat.

OP, have you listened to Armado Ianucci on "Strong message here" on Radio 4. I feel that is doing quite well with the political satire these days.
And yes I still watch and enjoy HIGNIFY. I do get what you mean about a warm comfort blanket, and a feeling of continuity - but it still does genuinely make me laugh enough to keep watching.

SF is the worst - wonderful in his heyday day as a comedy duo with Laurie
but his recent self declared polymath-ary ( presumably as he presents QI which we all know - even us plebs- is scripted ) musings as a 70+ man around having a child with his younger husband via a surrogate left me cold to the bone

We've been watching old reruns of QI and quite a lot of SF's jokes about younger men/boys wouldn't be tolerated today.

Well, I still find it funny. What do you consider funny?

I’m not fussed about them so much - I think that middle class ‘ bawdy edgy gay man ’ humour was of its era pushing back etc
not to my taste as I think better comedians had done it prior ( see Kenneth Williams for starters and my beloved Julian clary - quick clever, acerbic- genius. Even Graham Norton in his early days )
but SF is self congratulatory, smugness, privilege in a bottle.
Punching down and ascending to national treasure status while simultaneously banging on about rent-a-womb at 70 odd is rank

But it is still funny. Odd that you think otherwise unless you are a member of Reform.

I think it's funny that's why I watch it.

I agree OP. That they couldn’t satirise the dangerous ridiculousness that is the trans movement was the beginning of the end for me. Lucky really as I cancelled my TV licence over the BBCs promotion of that particular ideology anyway.

Not only couldn’t they
it terrorised them to the bone

with the untouchable platform they have- unspeakable cowards

Stephen Fry hasn't done HIGNFY since Deyton left in 2002, and hasn't done QI for 9 years.

I still like it, and still find it funny. And I never miss it.

I think it’s funny

I find it really funny but I suppose it’s in a dad joke sorta way. I love a dad joke though. I’m disappointed when it’s not on.

Quite a stretch there really