Had tickets last night to watch Have I Got News for You being recorded with two comedians I can’t honestly say I have ever heard of (Lee Mack and Kevin Bridges), along with the bombastic leader of the UKIP party, Nigel Farage.

Described as “half man, half foghorn”, I wasn’t sure if this was going to be a classic HIGNFY car-crash type programme where he was strung up for ritual sacrifice, or if he would come out fairly well.

For the record, standing in a queue outside the TV studio for 90 minutes in the bitterly freezing cold wind was not fun.

Anyhow, for a politician to appear on the show can quite literally make or break a career, and I suspect that Nigel Farage will come out of this fairly well – subject to the editing suite gods being nice to him.

For someone who comes across on TV as being quite rude, he was genially self-deprecating on the show and took the mocking in good humour. However, he only ever seemed to join in when politics was mentioned. As soon as anything non-political was talked about he effectively vanished from the set.

I suspect he might be the sort of political person I have met on occasions – whose entire life is driven by their political cause. Which actually makes them quite dull for casual conversation over a pint.

A slight misunderstanding about a the “Tory’s secret weapon” did lead to the idea that Boris Johnson might be pregnant. A horrific idea! There was also a long-running joke about Ian Hislop being gay which may or may not make the edits as there was another running joke, aptly about laughing hyenas which might be better.

The recording itself was slower than usual and was a bit like a car constantly stuttering along – never quite getting up to normal speed, but getting you to the end eventually. Fortunately, there was plenty of comic material, so the end result should be quite good.

The recording is normally done on a Thursday night for a broadcast on Friday, but this series has been bumped off the Friday night slot for some TV drama show. Horrors!

A final oddity last night was the size of the audience. There are typically two blocks of seats either side of the stage, and another block directly in front – all of which can be seen on the show during the credits, but two blocks of “crap” seats to either side were missing last night. Odd that.

More tickets for later in the series will be released on the Hatrick website – details about booking tickets here.

P.S. When UKIP was founded, I initially thought it was pronounced as You Kay Eye Pee. Opps!

The BBC’s Have I Got News for You is one of those television shows, which largely thanks to its rotating guests and the topicality of the news is a programme that has many highs, and some lows. Quite often the presence of a key guest or host will make or break the show.

Anyone who watches the show regularly will probably still be grinning after they had Brian Blessed on last year. At last nights recording, the potential for an outstanding episode existed as the villainous leader of the RMT, one Bob Crow was invited on as a guest. In addition, to add proverbial sauce to the gander, they had the usually highly sarcastic Alexander Armstrong as host and the currently somewhat controversial Jimmy Carr as the opposing guest.

All was set for a battle of wits such as has rarely been seen.

The show actually started quite well, as when the guests walk onto the stage one at a time, the clapping turned to boos and hisses as Bob Crow appeared. You could tell it was largely a London based audience! The introduction that was recorded for broadcast had some booing, but far less than the prerecorded segment.

Also, slightly unusually based on recent shows, the comedian was partnered with Ian Hislop, and the political guest was partnered with Paul Merton. However, as the recording progressed, it was clear that there was absolutely no chemistry between Paul and Bob as would normally be exhibited within the show.

All told, we got a very mixed programme that seemed to have had much of the life drained out of it on one side, while most of the action came from Ian Hislop and Jimmy Carr, who were on very good form.

There were the expected jibes at Bob Crow and his penchant for calling strikes at the drop of a hat, and a joke was made where they stopped recording for a negotiated tea break. However, the expected biting satire seemed very muted. There have guests on the show before who have been practically shredded by the regulars, but they seemed to be wearing kid gloves last night – and Paul Merton seemed utterly disinterested in the whole proceedings.

There was however a good section where they have a mock up of a tube train animation to introduce several picture based questions. The view of a lobster driving a tube train was alarming – although I bet they wouldn’t go on strike as often. Hmmm!

Bob Crow though was a surprising disappointment.

Considering that he is an elected leader of a union, you would expect him to be reasonably articulate and able to hold a good debate. Actually, he spent much of the evening either one a one-track diatribe about capitalism and Europe, or talking in a garbled manner that was so difficult to understand that you could almost see the question marks popping into existence over peoples heads as they listened to him.

There was a bit of sniping about Ian Hislop’s background and education and it was difficult to be sure if it was jocular banter, or genuine nastiness. That Ian Hislop slightly snapped back at one time suggested, sadly, the latter.

His one track mind on the issue of Europe and some bizarre conspiracy theories he came out with reminded me very much of a former Tory MP, Teddy Taylor – who also appeared on HIGNFY some years ago and spent most of the evening on a one-track diatribe about Europe. As then, so last night – in that the audience was laughing at Bob Crow, not with him.

To be fair, he got some genuine laughs, but they were rare and often prompted by comments by the other panelists.

The show is typically about two hours of recording then compressed down to the 25 minutes used on TV. Normally, a lot of outstanding material is discarded in the editing, although I have been to a few recordings, where one guest was noticeably poor and the editing has been very sympathetic to make them look a lot better than they really were.

That we had a fairly boring Bob Crow sitting next to an almost invisible Paul Merton lead to a very one-sided episode, and it will be very interesting to see how the editors are able to create an interesting, and even handed TV show. I suspect either an average show, or a “classic” where they leave in the worst ramblings of Bob Crow and make him look a complete fool.

Look forward to it tonight on BBC1, or the slightly longer version on BBC2 tomorrow.

Update: Jimmy Carr was taking photos during the early part – one of the guests here. I also spelt Bob Crow with an E throughout the entire blog posting. No idea why! (he says, quickly blaming late night typing).

Back from a slightly bizare recording of Have I Got News for You, hosted by Jack Dee along with Clare Balding and Fred Macaulay.

I was in a bad mood as one of my own guests turned up late, so despite being right at the head of the queue, we ended up with indifferent seating – but at least with a clear view of the stage.

The recording was also about average, although as I have been spoilt by watching the incredible recordings with Tom Baker and Brian Blessed, maybe I am a tad jaded now?

However, the ending was utterly bizare, and it’ll be interesting to see how much is included in the final program.

Without giving too much of a spoiler, there was a standing ovation towards the end as an ironic response to a comment that one set of clapping was indifferent – leading to a round of clapping that, not unlike a Soviet era applause, went on for ages – then lead to the aforementioned standing ovation. Quite weird, and apparently the first time in the entire history of the program that such a thing has happened.

As usual, the recording session at the end was actually the best bit of the show, although they only show a few bits from that on the longer Saturday night version. A comment about Alan Johnson had me nearly scream in delight – although the lawyers also required a comment to be recorded about a certain celeb who presumably would object to something said during the main quiz about his Scottishness.

I’ll look forward to watching the final version to see how the editing was done.

Update: The procedure has changed since the below was written. Click on the link for the latest details of how to request tickets to see Have I Got News for You being recorded

Regular readers will know that I am a bit of a fan (to put it mildly) of HIGNFY, and usually manage to get to watch at least one episode being recorded for each season. Some have asked how I do this, and today is an ideal time to explain that mystery, as details of the next batch of tickets have just been posted.

Basically, tickets are made available via the Hattrick website on a specific date and time – and they typically “sell out” within 10-15 minutes.

What happens is that at the nominated time, you can go to the website, select an available date (always a Thursday evening) and request up to 4 tickets by filling in a booking form with your personal details. Once you do that, you’ll get an email shortly confirming that you have applied for the tickets.

However, at this point you have not been guaranteed them!

At some point later, which varies but seems to be about a month before the recording is due, you’ll get another email confirming that you did (or did not) get tickets – and that they will be posted to you.

On the day of the recording, check you have the tickets and covering letter. They don’t usually check the letter, but I have been there on some evenings when they do check you are who you say you are.

The recording occurs at the TV studios on the South Bank, and the doors open about 6:45pm, but you really do need to be there a lot earlier. Like any event which is free, a fair number of people decide on the day that they just can’t be bothered to turn up – so the TV studio always overbooks – and if you turn up after about 6:15pm, there is a risk that you wont get in.

Also, the earlier you arrive, the better the seats you get offered.

If you do turn up late, the seats might not have a direct view of the main stage – but fret not, for they set up TV screens so you can still see what is going on, and effectively get a 2-hour version of the show.

OK, the doors open and you are let inside in batches and as you go into the studio, staff will guide to you suitable seats. One tip, if desperate for the loo, go to the studio and get seats first – then go back down the corridor to the toilet – that way you don’t lose your place in the queue and risk getting pushed to the poorer seating. Another tip, if in the queue outside and also desperate for the loo, go to the head of the queue and the security guards will let you inside to use the toilets.

OK, you are settled down and waiting – and the floor manager will come out to explain a few basics and then will hand over to a “warm up act”, who basically gets you into a good mood and explains some of the conventions of how TV recordings work.

The guests, host and regulars, Ian Hislop and Paul Merton are brought on – a bit of fiddling with microphones and the like occurs, and then the recording starts.

The show is generally recorded in one continuous take and edited later. At the end of the recording, they do a few reruns of comments where the editors think they need to change how a sentence ends (or starts) as they have already decided what to cut or keep. Weirdly, that last bit is some times the funniest bit of the evening as the presenters relax a bit, and it is a bit surreal to hear the jokes a second time round.

Then that’s it – off you go while the staff start dismantling the set.

How to get tickets.

OK – here’s the important bit.

Tickets are made available twice a year, typically in March and September and the date is announced on the Hattrick website a few weeks before the launch date. On the nominated day, the tickets page goes live usually somewhere between 11am and midday – so you need to refresh the page regularly to keep an eye on when the tickets page goes live. Remember, they normally run out of tickets within 10-15 minutes!

The next batch of tickets will be made available on 30th March 2009 around September time – so put a note in your diary (although I’ll be flagging it on the blog as well).

The web page to visit is: http://www.hattrick.co.uk/tickets/index_tickets.php

Once you have got your first tickets to the show, you will usually also be put on their mailing list which can sometimes get you offers of last-minute tickets, or the highly coveted “red dot” tickets which allow you to jump to the front of the queue.

Update: Click on the link for the latest details of how to request tickets to see Have I Got News for You being recorded

Saw the recording of tonight’s episode of Have I Got News for You last night.

Jeremy Clarkson hosting is exactly what you expect – so the show is good, but not raucously funny.

However, the show is going to be memorable for a very different reason, and depending on how much the editors leave in could be one of those episodes people talk about at the water cooler for some time.

As the saying goes, the pen is indeed mightier (and it seems, sharper) than the sword – especially when it is thrown across the desk and stabs Ian Hislop in the face.

Update

As the program has gone out – it is clear that they edited a lot out. The incident was actually a lot, lot funnier in the studio and Clarkson was genuinely quite sorry about the whole thing.

Hislop milked it like mad though – and kept going on about getting botulism poisoning and pulling a frozen face throughout the remainder of the recording.

They actually sent a make-up girl on with a plaster just after it happened but he waved it away.

I hope they leave more of that in for the slightly longer version shown tonight.