Author

Paul started 'seriously' writing comedy with with his friend John Irwin at school. John Irwin would go on to write with Paul on most of the work mentioned in this article (later Paul met Lee Simpson, another regular collaborator). After they both started working for the Civil Service they used to use their spare time to write sketches and then send them to the BBC.

Paul Merton and John Irwin

"We wrote four half hour shows. We must have thought the BBC would call up and say: "We've lost our 'Morecambe and Wise' tape, so we'll put your rubbish on instead."

Although they had some small successes, Paul found like so many other comedy writers that if he wanted his material heard he'd be better off performing it himself. So it was that Paul Martin became Paul Merton. The actors union already had a member called Paul Martin, a comedy magician from Leeds.

Paul very quickly became known as one of the best comedians on the club circuit. After early success on radio, TV beckoned. Ironically his two biggest successes "Whose Line Is It Anyway ?" and "Have I Got News For You" gave him little chance to write material in advance, having mainly to rely on his improvisational skills.

Now known as a performer, Paul could go back to writing as a "known quantity". He worked on a book called "Paul Merton's History of the Twentieth Century", his own Channel 4 sketch show, and two series for Julian Clary. All this while still performing regularly on TV. Something had to give, it was Paul's health. Twice hospitalised, he learnt the hard way that he had to slow down, or have a nervous breakdown.

"It saved me."

The writing of a second Channel 4 series followed whilst always coming up with new "one-off" jokes for his standup performances. In 1995 he published his second book "My Struggle", a fictional autobiography drawing on his extensive knowledge of comedy and show business in general over the last century. It garnered good reviews, even that comedy bible The Times described it as "brilliant and extremely funny".

The following year Paul agreed to appear in a series written by somebody else, although the fact that the "somebody else" was legendary comedy writing team Ray Galton and Alan Simpson made it an easy decision. Meanwhile Paul and writing partner John Irwin wrote two specials for the BBC, The Paul Merton Show and Does China Exist ? neither of which seemed to hit the mark. Paul was now beginning to suffer from his own success, those who had seen him improvise on other shows expected every sketch and every joke to be as funny as his best work on those shows, an impossible standard to maintain.

A change of direction was required. Paul returned to the stage with a national tour of a new one man show "And this is me...", his most personal work to date. The show mixed the best of his standup routines with personal (and sometimes painful) stories from his own life. This was the stuff good comedy is made of, a well written show which is then honed by repeated performance. Paul was back where he started, but now at the top of his profession.