Have I Got News for You - Series 40, Episode 2

Broadcast: BBC1, Thursday, 9pm 21st October 2010

Guest Presenter: Frank Skinner

Teams:

Reginald D Hunter

Paul Merton

Janet Street-Porter

Ian Hislop

The Episode had a clip of Janet Street-Porter commenting on her cleavage preceding the opening credits! "Sorry for these, I don't know where they came from. They were never there before" or words to that effect. Wasn't as funny as they made it out to be.

Paul Merton and Ian Hislop held this episode together. It felt quite routine for Skinner who seemed fairly indifferent about being there, and probably couldn't care less about the show - and it showed.

News context:

• The Spending Review
• Arnold Schwarzenegger's visit to the PM, with Cameron saying he's here to "help me terminate the budget"
• Wayne Rooney's intention to leave Manchester United
• Sarkozy's visit to the Pope without Carla Bruni

Street-Porter was quite off-key: harpering on about herself as a pensioner, her apparent intimations with the Governator (Arnold Schwarzenegger), spouting off various bits of knowledge about the Spending Review that were ill-timed, and disrupting of the light and amiable ambience. Felt like she was trying to be funny, in a forced, contrived, and totally unfunny way. A point articulated by Reginald D Hunter: "What the hell are you talking about?".

Reginald D Hunter was perhaps the most respectable panellist there: you wanted to like him, see him 'perform' well... But he looked uncomfortable and cautious cracking jokes. Mostly reverted to British-isms (how 'arse' has connotations of class, that in a British restaurant you could order some; compared to Americans where a swear-word is a proper swear-word and you know it! 'ass' with a suitably Americanised inflection), and calling Carla Bruni a 'Hoe'!... You felt he definitely wasn't abreast of all the latest news stories, which accounted for a sense of insecurity, and was forced to politely observe the 'witticisms' of the Merton-Hislop show.

Memorable gag:

Paul Merton: Saying that its a bit hippocritical of the Pope to judge Sarkozy on his past!...

Porter was quite annoying, was out-of-touch, harpering about herself for much of the programme. Reginald D Hunter under-performed, but feel he did the best he could without reading any papers, or keeping abreast of the news. Frank Skinner's indifference to the show was perhaps projected onto the audience who might have felt something similar this time around.

Personal Rating: 2.5/5