Ian Hislop
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Ian Hislop (born July 13, 1960) is the editor of British satirical magazine Private Eye, a team captain on the popular satirical current affairs quiz Have I Got News for You and a comedy scriptwriter.
Early life
Hislop was born in Mumbles, South Wales to a Scottish father and an English mother. However, just five months after his birth, the family began to travel around the world in accordance with his father's job. During his infant years, Hislop lived in Nigeria, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Hong Kong. On his return to the United Kingdom, Hislop was educated at Ardingly College, where he started his satirical career, directing and appearing in reviews, and also became Head Prefect. He then attended Magdalen College, Oxford, where he graduated with a degree in English literature in 1981. At Oxford he founded and edited the magazine Passing Wind, in which he interviewed Richard Ingrams, who was then editor of Private Eye. He joined the latter immediately after leaving Oxford, and became editor in 1986 upon Ingrams' departure.
Private Eye
In his role as editor, Ian Hislop has become the most sued man in English legal history [[Citing sources citation needed]]. The most famous libel case involving Hislop and Private Eye was brought by the publishing magnate Robert Maxwell. After the case he quipped: "I've just given a fat cheque to a fat Czech". Ordered to pay £600,000 in damages after being sued for libel by Sonia Sutcliffe, wife of the Yorkshire Ripper, Peter Sutcliffe, Hislop told reporters waiting outside the High Court, "If that was justice then I'm a banana." [link]. However, the award was dropped to £60,000 on appeal, and the magazine's attacks on Maxwell were fully vindicated by the revelations of massive fraud that followed his death.
Ever wary, on Have I Got News for You he often suffixes potentially slanderous statements with "allegedly".
Have I Got News for You
Hislop is the only person to have appeared in every episode of Have I Got News for You
Other television and radio work
Hislop has also presented serious TV programmes. These include School Rules, a three-part Channel 4 study on the history of British education; an edition of the BBC's Who Do You Think You Are?, in which he attempted to trace his genealogy and The Lost Generation, a four-part series on Channel 4 detailing the lives of numerous individuals lost in the First World War. He also presented one episode of the BBC's Great Railway Journeys, in which he travelled across India.
Hislop was also a key scriptwriter on the 1980s political satire series, Spitting Image, in which puppets were used to depict well-known figures, mostly politicians.
Hislop, along with Nick Newman, wrote the BBC Radio 4 series Gush, a satire based on the first Gulf War, in the style of Jeffrey Archer. With Newman, he also wrote the family-friendly satirical sitcom My Dad's the Prime Minister.
Recently, he has also written and presented factual programmes for Radio 4 about such subjects as tax rebellions, female hymn composers and patron saints of the British Isles.
He has also been a comedy scriptwriter for Harry Enfield (providing the Tim Nice-but-Dim character) and My Dad's the Prime Minister.
External link
- [Ian Hislop interview] (Evening Standard)
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|- |-align="center"| Have I Got News for You |- | colspan="3" align="center" | Ian Hislop | Angus Deayton | Paul Merton |- | colspan="3" align="center" | The Guest Presenters on HIGNFY |- |- bgcolor="white" | colspan="3" align="center" style="font-size: 50%;" | |- | colspan="3" align="center" style="font-size: 100%;" | HIGNFY Episodes | HIGNFY Guest Publications |-
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