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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Interviews by Rich Pelley

‘I was a stuffed shirt, he was an oik’ – Ian Hislop and Paul Merton on making Have I Got News for You

‘I wore a T-shirt as I thought we looked like a parole board’ … from left, Ian Hislop, Angus Deayton and Paul Merton in 1990.
‘I wore a T-shirt as I thought we looked like a parole board’ … from left, Ian Hislop, Angus Deayton and Paul Merton in 1990. Photograph: BBC

Paul Merton

I’d just come out of Maudsley psychiatric hospital in London, because I’d had a very bad reaction to an anti-malarial drug, Larium. I’d gone on holiday to Kenya at the end of 1989. The daily drug was fine, but the weekly one gave me manic episodes. Every Friday I’d get very strange, but by Sunday it had worn off.

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