Says Dara O Briain

Dara O Briain says Mock The Week has got ‘a lot more fun’ since Frankie Boyle left.

He said Boyle, who left in 2009, made the panel show a ‘bear pit’ because of his savage wit, whereas the show is now more of an open discussion.

The Scottish comic had ‘killer lines’ that would cut the conversation dead, O Briain said, leaving other panelists fighting to get their jokes into the edit.

‘Now it's much more reflective,’ he told the Radio Times. ‘It may be we're all a little bit older. Or maybe it's because Frankie has gone.

‘There's not the same emphasis on savage one-liners. It's much more of a messing-around kind of show, which for me is a lot more fun.’

‘Frankie would distill the discussion into a brilliantly punchy killer line. Some [comedians] are open-ended: they say something to add to the discussion and move it along, riffing on it. Frankie would be more: bang! That's the end of that. That's the last word on that topic.

‘That was his genius – and it was perfectly suited for the editing of this kind of show - but it did breed an atmosphere where everyone had to get in there as quickly as possible.

‘We became a bit of a bear pit. People who do it now don't find that.’

• CLARIFICATION: Since publishing this article, it has been brought to our attention that Dara's interview appeared in the Radio Times several months ago. We apologise for the delay in reporting it, and for not making that clear.

Published: 18 Apr 2013