Paul Merton, The Series: Episode 1.4

Paul Merton, The Series: Episode 1.4
Channel Four
16 October 1991
Sketch Comedy
DVD
B-

This episode gets a little too Monty-Pythonic for my tastes (more surreal than funny), especially the first half, with its layers of dreams, ultimately dreamed by a cat.  Still, the newstand stuff, especially Paul's video game and the bit about the first Tube station, is solid.  The best sketch is last, where Paul is a bishop admonishing a dead-raising priest.  (He's played by Lee Simpson, who you may recognize from his Whose Line Is It Anyway? appearance.  He didn't work with Paul there, but they've been Comedy Store Players onstage for years.)

Geoff McGivern makes his second appearance on the show, as the Elephant Man, while this is also the second for Judy Elrington and Tim de Jongh.  William Todd Jones is on for the first of two times.  Note that this time Caroline plays the wife of one of Paul's characters.