Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
A satirist, editor of Private Eye, scriptwriter for Spitting Image, and team captain on Have I Got News for You?
On the island
Eight records
Se vuol ballareFavourite
It's when Figaro is replying to the Count's overtures to his wife, and he's sort of singing a very Machiavellian little tune.
I could not believe two men in black tie could sit on a London stage and be that funny.
Everybody Needs Somebody to Love
It's a moment of amazing self-indulgence and I absolutely love it.
Choir of King's College, Cambridge
which I had sung at my wedding.
Yes, that's from the days when I actually had a pork pie hat and thought two-tone was wonderful.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:02Do you still think being editor of Private Eye is the best job in the world?
Yes, I still think it takes some beating. I did make rather a lot of pompous pronouncements when I took over saying I will do this job for five years and at that age five years seemed a very long time. And I've now done it for seven. And hopefully people have forgotten that I said that.
Presenter asks
2:12How did you manage to lose the case when you called Robert Maxwell a liar, cheat, and fraud, especially since he cried in court?
Yes, he cried in court. He wept in the dock, and the jury were shocked, moved, and immediately awarded him huge amounts of money. I must admit, it was a very moving scene. … My lawyer actually passed me a note saying, Maxwell takes out onion. He didn't believe it for a minute.
Presenter asks
7:14Did you become so involved in school life because something really rather tragic happened in your family?
Yes, I suppose that that is true. My father died when I was twelve, which was very young, and I'd only just begun to get to know him. … It was a total shock. … My mother came to the school and I was taken out of a lesson and taken to see the headmaster, and I knew, in the way that you just know, and was told that he'd gone. … It was a time of terrific sadness, and my response was to be very involved in the school again and my friends, and that became what I wanted to do. A kind of substitute, yes.
The keepsakes
The book
Kenneth Clark
largely because it's very politically incorrect and no one likes it any more. But I think it would be wonderful to sit there and remind myself what you don't have on a desert island, which is the benefits, the trappings and uh the comforts of civilization. So that's what I'd take.
The luxury
I can't cook. I'm never going to catch anything. I want a supply of frosties to eat. I lived on them for the first five years of my life in London, and I don't see why I shouldn't continue on this island.
Presenter asks
12:38Was it a kind of instant recognition when you first met Richard Ingrams?
I greatly enjoyed meeting Richard, and he made me laugh, and I made him laugh, and I think by the end of it, even though I'd probably asked no sensible journalistic questions at all, I'd established some sort of rapport with him.
Presenter asks
17:49How have you coped with increased recognition as a result of Have I Got News for You? Do you like people poking you on the screen?
Sue, it's terrible. I just can't bear it. I can't go to the supermarket. … The recognition and the celebrity … if anyone ever wants to put me in my place, they say, Oh, I see you're a celebrity, Ian. … I don't want it to intrude in the sense of me living my life in the way I want to do it.
Presenter asks
25:10Do you think of yourself as a satirist, part of a tradition?
Yes, it's certainly one of the things I do, and I think that's certainly where the I and these offshoots of the sixties satire movement come from. They come from a long tradition in this country of satirical writing. … That's what that tradition does. It looks critically at the way public life is organized and says no.
“my mother came to the school and I was taken out of a lesson and taken to see the headmaster, and I knew, in the way that you just know, and um, was told that he'd gone.”
“I was so excited about seeing him because ... Beyond the Fringe ... and there I was going to meet Peter Cook. The thing about Peter is that when you're nineteen you really shouldn't try and keep up with him drinking.”
“I think my lack of professionalism had touched a chord somewhere amongst the private eye amateurs.”
“the point of satire is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable”
“I would much rather escape um than put up with my lot and sit there.”