'He didn’t look good’

Frankie Boyle struggled when he appeared on Have I Got News For You because he underestimated the audience, Paul Merton has claimed.

The longstanding team captain said Boyle ‘sweated and looked uncomfortable’ when his bad-taste gags went down badly with the studio audience.

And he said much of Boyle’s offensive material was cut out of the final broadcast because he ‘didn’t look good’ on the show.

In an interview with the Daily Telegraph today, Merton said: ‘Comedians have come on from Mock the Week and they forget that we have a different audience. A brighter audience, dare I say.

‘One of them made a joke about Josef Fritzl but the audience didn’t like it and he started sweating a lot and looked uncomfortable.’

When the interviewer asked if it was Frankie Boyle, Merton added: ‘Yeah. And we got a call from his agent on the Monday saying we had cut all his best material. But we did him a favour. He didn’t look good.’

Boyle appeared on Merton’s team in both December 2006 and May 2008:

Published: 23 May 2011