Controversial and funny (Have I got News for You)

Member Name: Tara

Product:	Have I got News for You
Date:	19/11/00 (34 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: see below

Disadvantages: see below

This is a celebrity quiz show, and a cleaver way of turning serious news into a source of amusement.

It has the same sort of layout as ‘Never Mind the Buzzcocks’. It has a fast-talking, sharp tongued, funny (if offensive) host (Angus Deayton) and two teams, in which one player is in the line-up permanently (in this case Ian Hislop, editor of Private Eye and the hysterically funny, Paul Merton who is particularly good at keeping a straight face through all the jokes) and the other varies from week to week. But all the guests on ‘Have I Got News For You’ are typically someone important in politics or the media, rather than in the music world.

And they usually have a good sense of humour, but if they don’t we just get to watch them having the piss taken out of them by all the others, which is almost as good. The majority manage to come up with some good quips, and Angus is just wonderful.

Everyone on the show is always saying really horrible things about all the people featured in the headlines. The pope and the queen are particular favourites to be insulted and degraded by the crew. This can be hilariously funny or just a plain cruel way of exploiting celebrities to make a few extra quid, depending on your point of view.

So, what actually happens? Well, there are several rounds all based on news in the last week, in which the teams take it in turns to guess the missing words in headlines, the story behind the clip and then the photo, the odd one out, and so on, to score points. They usually go about this in a very comical manner, with jokes aplenty in between the rounds.

And in the rare case of the teams drawing, the winner is decided by a swift game of paper-scissors-stone, which just about sums up the whole show.

If you’re someone looking for a smart and funny quiz show that is up to date on current affairs, this is for you. Catch it at 9pm on Friday nights.

Summary: