Drunks have turned me off stand-up comedy says Paul Merton

Comedian Paul Merton has turned his back on stand-up comedy for good because drunken hecklers have ruined the atmosphere of the genre which made him famous.
The performer and TV presenter, who has appeared as a team captain on BBC’s Have I Got News For You for more than two decades, claims he doesn’t even go to watch stand-up shows anymore because he simply doesn’t enjoy them.
The 57-year-old, who made his name as a comedian in the 1980s and broke onto the scene with Channel 4’s Saturday Night Live, said stand-up is no longer his ‘idea of relaxation’.
‘I’d go along thinking, “That’s a good joke”, or “That joke could be better”,’ he told The Times.
‘It’s not something that interests me to be honest.’
The comic, who is married to fellow comedian Suki Webster, now prefers improvisation describing it as way to break out of the straightjacket performances stand-up offers, which he claims he wasn’t ‘temperamentally suited’ to.
His life-long love affair with improvisation prompted him to create Impro Chums – a unique comedy show which sees him and four others perform sketches based entirely on suggestions from the audience.

The show, which is now in its 24th year, has survived many controversies, not least the departure of host Angus Deayton in 2002, which Merton was at the centre of.

At the time he said he ‘couldn’t care less’ who replaced Deayton, who was dismissed from his role after BBC executives and the show’s makers, Hat Trick Productions, claimed press coverage into his personal life – including accusations of prostitutes and cocaine use – was making his role as host ‘untenable’.

It was widely known that Merton, and his rival team captain Ian Hislop, supported the decision because keeping him on would have compromised the show.

Paul Merton with his wife Suki Webster in 2010

‘I don’t think I ever behaved in an underhand way towards Angus’, Merton said in the aftermath of the scandal.

‘Michael Parkinson once asked me whether I felt I’d stabbed him in the back and I replied, “No, I stabbed him in the front.” To be honest, I don’t think I even did that.

‘Angus had to go, but it wasn’t me who forced the issue.

‘He was a great straight man. The problem was that his place on the show had become untenable.’

Nowadays, the comedian keeps himself out of the limelight – even avoiding social media.

After the breakdown of his first marriage to actress Caroline Quentin, the comic started seeing TV producer Sarah Parkinson, marrying her in 2003, shortly before her death from breast cancer.

It was in 2004 he met his now-wife Suki, and since their marriage in 2009 they have managed to live away from the glare of media attention.

‘That’s deliberate,’ he said. ‘I don’t like red-carpet events. The celebrity world means nothing to me.’

Source – The Daily Mail