The South Bank Show: Paul Merton

The South Bank Show: Paul Merton
Channel Four
26 September 1999
Documentary
DVD
B

This isn't quite a biography but it does feature different points of a life, from a boyhood as Paul Martin to success as a comedian in the '90s.  If you want to know about Paul's (by then defunct) marriage to Caroline Quentin, you're out of luck, as there's just one sentence in passing.  However, we do see footage of him as a scruffy, bearded teen living on the dole, as well as a star in hit television programmes.  My favorite part was the taping of a Comedy Store Players session and the analysis by the team in a pub afterwards.  And Paul's honesty, including about his stay in a psychiatric hospital, is refreshing.  Note that Julian Clary appears not only in television clips but in an interview, where he indeed comes across as a good friend to Paul.