BBC star Paul Merton has been musing the benefits of hosting popular shows on the radio rather than television.
The Have I Got News For You presenter, 65, has been a frequent star of the small screen since the late 1980s, but the comic is now seemingly enjoying life off-screen and on the airwaves.
Paul, who made his TV breakthrough thanks to improvised comedy show Whose Line Is It Anyway? in 1988, has been hosting former TV show Room 101 on BBC Radio 4 since earlier this year.
The comedian returned as the show's presenter in January, after previously succeeding Nick Hancock to front the TV version from 1999 until 2007. Frank Skinner hosted a revised format between 2012 and 2018.
The one-time BBC show, named after the torture room mentioned in George Orwell's novel 1984, sees celebrity guests discuss their pet hates and pick the things they want to see banished into Room 101.
Room 101 started off life on Radio 2 in 1992 before making it's TV debut in 1994, and has now gone full circle and found itself back on the airwaves - much to host Paul's delight.
"It’s just you and a guest on two comfy chairs, so it’s more like theatre and the audience response was even more enthusiastic than they had been on TV," Paul muses when chatting to the Radio Times about the radio reboot.
"Probably because I have quite an austere attitude on Have I Got News for You, strangers don’t come up to me and try to make jokes. Which is a blessing."
The third host of Room 101 was the one to reveal the show had got the axe back in 2018, with Frank Skinner sharing that the BBC series would not be returning after 24 years on the air.
When quizzed about rumours the show had been dropped by the BBC, Frank told the Daily Star : "Who the f*** cares?"
According to the newspaper, he added: "Room 101 is dead. But I'm alright fiscally.
"I've done seven series'. I don't feel that I have been washed up on the shores of stand up."
Paul eased back into the Room 101 chair with ease earlier this year, interviewing Channel 4 presenter Steph McGovern about her pet hates for one of the first episodes of the Radio 4 reboot.
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