Paul Merton - Acclaim and Awards

Acclaim and Awards

In a 2007 public poll featured in The Guardian, Merton was voted alongside the likes of Oscar Wilde, Spike Milligan, Noël Coward and Winston Churchill as one of the ten greatest wits of all time. The Comedian's Comedian, a 2005 Channel 4 poll of fellow comedians, saw him voted among the top twenty greatest international comedians in history, with host Jimmy Carr crediting him for being "responsible for more great lines than Angus Deayton's dealer." The Observer's "The A-Z of Laughter", a 2003 special compiled by expert judges which featured the fifty funniest acts in British comedy by letter, applauded Merton for "bringing to Have I Got News for You a genuine surrealism that cuts through the clubbable smugness."

Merton has accumulated multiple awards and honours. After seven BAFTA Award nominations for "Best Entertainment Performance", he finally won the award in 2003, defeating fellow Have I Got News for You star Angus Deayton, who had been dismissed from the show the previous October. He has since been nominated for a further three awards – a total of eleven nominations – including a nomination for his travel documentary Paul Merton in China. Merton's appearances on Have I Got News for You have seen him nominated for five British Comedy Awards, winning the 1992 "Top TV Comedy Personality" and 1999 "Best Comedy Entertainment Personality" awards. He has also shared a further three British Comedy Awards with the panel and crew of the show, winning "Best new TV comedy" in 1991, "Best comedy gameshow" in 1999 and "Best Comedy Panel Show" in 2009. He received the 2004 Broadcasting Press Guild Award for "Best Non-Acting Performer", also for his work on Have I Got News for You.

In 2008, Merton presented Bruce Forsyth with a BAFTA Fellowship: Forsyth had given Merton his Best Entertainment Performance award in 2003.