Taking advantage of a spare ticket, I was lucky enough to be in the audience for the recording of tonight’s Have I Got News For You. I’ve never been to a TV recording before, so there were lots of technically interesting things (huge light fixtures!), but mostly a great amount of entertainment for free (tickets are a lottery). For starters there’s a warm-up comedian who has some standard lines, but really had working the crowd down to a polished art. Following that, for a thirty minute show they record a huge amount of material, almost two hours I’d guess. I imagine for some shows this drags, but with Paul Merton and Ian Hislop on form, it was side-splittingly good. Paul Merton has a reputation for being, uh, viciously sarcastic, and having finally seen him, I wholeheartedly agree.
A lot of the cut material is potentially legally dubious, at least for the recording I saw; at the end a few pieces were re-recorded / added, including some comedy disclaimers; presumably they have some legal advice watching the recording to point out what is and isn’t going to get anyone sued. But in the studio, no one cares – anything and everything gets said, and it’s brilliant.
you saw lauren laverne in the flesh? phwoooooaaaar! (ahem.)
Interesting. We went to see QI being filmed recently, and had an apparently identical experience. Will do it again!