Just a quick note as quite tired.
Today, we went to watch the filming of the first episode of the new series of Have I Got News For You (filmed at the ITV London Studios). The free tickets from Hattrick (HIGNFY’s production company) said that the doors open at 6.45pm : we were there for 4.30pm and were around 30/40th in the queue. By the time 6.30pm came round (and we had been standing in the cold wind and rain outside), the queue stretched out the “Audience Queue” area, past the side of the building, round the corner on the pavement and further still(!). Spoilers may be ahead…
Anyway, we got in, got warm and sat down on the left hand side of seats (Ian Hislop’s side around four rows from the front). Warm up act was pretty good, then Ian Hislop was announced, Paul Merton, a northern comedian (can’t remember his name – but he had a Commodore 64 when he was younger!), a Nigel somebody from UKIP and Lee Mack was hosting (and he couldn’t get the UKIP MEP’s name correct). It was extremely funny and lots of it will get cut – let’s see how much of the following stay in: Lee’s “44 inches” (should have been finches), multiple references to Ian being “Dorothy” (look out for the “drunk sign”), references to the Arsenal game going on at the point (everybody but my fiancee and Ian seemed to constantly know the score!), the Northern Comedian’s reference to Dan Dare (which I responded to), Paul Merton asking the heating to be increased, the MPs being caught out by Dispatches and the cut down of the expenses, the Chancellors TV “meeting”, Paxman grilling dupty leaders, the Queen and Canadian steps, Hislop encouraging the audience to vote LibDem and then UKIP (in jest the latter), the forthcoming election (and Cameron being Titchmarshed) and advertising (Saatchi got one mention or was it two? “80,000 criminals released – vote me”) and the Google Street View sheet in the “And finally” section (when it had to be redone for some reason, somebody in the audience baar’d (I wonder which version they’ll use). And when they did the trailer for HIGNFY “My name’s Lee Mack and Have I Got News For You will be broadcast on Thursday at 9pm. The reason it’s being broadcast on Thursday instead of Friday is so Ian can go out clubbing. So remember, Have I Got News For You tonight at 9.30pm on BBC 1” – Ian said “seal clubbing” and Hislop responded “I bet that’s the first time Seal Clubbing has got applause”.
All in all – very good fun. We queued for about 2-2.5 hours, watched them film until 10pm (so 2.5 hours) and then got home just before midnight due to problems at Finchley Road (so another 2 hours).
[I’ve deleted items not shown in either final broadcast and italicised stuff which was only included in the “Have I Got Extra News For You” broadcast[
One Comment
I used to print all the back drops for that show, kept copies of the files too.
I’ve found that when you’ve been to a recording, the programs don’t really cut it any more.
As an aside, the hatrick lads told me that the last time that idiot Boris Johnson chaired the show, it took FOUR AND A HALF hours to get the half hours worth of footage for the show. Longest it’s ever taken.
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