Monty Don wasted no time making his mark as guest host on Have I Got News For You, kicking off his debut with a cheeky dig at fellow gardening icon Alan Titchmarsh.
The beloved BBC panel show, which first launched in 1990 and has rotated celebrity guest hosts since 2002, welcomed the 70-year-old horticultural star for Friday night’s episode. Joining him in the studio were regular team captains Ian Hislop and Paul Merton, alongside comedian Chris McCausland and journalist Helen Lewis.
A preview of the episode showed Monty leading the panel through the week’s biggest headlines, beginning with a story tied to this year’s Chelsea Flower Show.
“Do you know what else is set to cause a buzz at this year’s Chelsea Flower Show?” Monty asked, before adding: “What is David Beckham doing at Chelsea this year?”
Chris replied: “Well I believe he’s designing a garden or something…”
Monty then pushed further, asking: “And do you know who he’s doing it with?”
Chris quipped: “King Charles? He’s got seven flower beds, to represent the number on his shirt, and zero sunflowers to represent the number of times he’s spoken to his own son in the last year…”
Ian jumped in with: “Can I just ask, is that Beckham or King Charles?”
As the laughter continued, Monty read out that David Beckham was designing a garden with King Charles and that the project would include expertise from a familiar face in the gardening world.
“It’s TV’s top gardener, national treasure, all round good egg…” he began, before Paul cut in with: “Alan Titchmarsh?”
With the audience laughing, Monty confirmed it, saying: “Yes, yes….” before delivering the punchline: “The b*****d.”
The episode also saw the panel joking about the return of the Artemis II astronauts following their 10-day mission, which reportedly took the crew farther from Earth than any human had previously travelled, reaching 252,756 miles.
Chris explained: “They had to orientate the whole ship to face the sun,” before Ian added: “To unfreeze the toilet.”
Chris then joked: “I mean we’ve all done a few visits in the past where we’ve had to wait for the sun to hit the bathroom to sort it out…”
Monty later asked: “When did they splash down?” prompting Paul to reply: “Tonight… or yesterday!” in a nod to the show being recorded on Thursday night.
Monty clarified: “It’s actually in the early hours of Saturday morning,” before Chris added another joke: “Meant to be in the ocean isn’t it? Imagine the irony if they landed in Iran…”
The tone then shifted as the panel turned to the conflict involving the US and Iran, with Monty saying: “This is the news that none of Trump’s war goals have been achieved, so he’s declared it a total victory.”
Helen Lewis responded: “Iran basically won, that’s the bit that no one really wants to say out loud,” before arguing that the objectives first laid out had not been met. She added that, instead, Iran had found a new way to profit through the Strait of Hormuz.
Ian then joked: “But, if you’ve got a set of war aims and you achieve none of them that’s not bad…”
Monty also quoted one of Trump’s dramatic online statements, saying: “A whole civilisation will die tonight… I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.”
Chris reacted by saying: “Has there ever been a bigger U-turn than ‘we’re going to liberate a people from an oppressive regime’, to ‘we’re going to obliterate the entire civilisation’?”
Ian added: “Everyone says this is the theory that if he looks completely mad, his enemies will think he’s capable of doing anything, whereas actually it makes him look as though he’s rather weak, and he’s got to shout and scream at them…”
Paul then cracked: “I find it best to ignore what he says… unfortunately this programme doesn’t follow the same policy.”
Monty closed the segment in characteristically dry style, referencing remarks from Trump’s spokesperson Karoline Leavitt: “Only the President knows where things stand and what he will do.”
Then he delivered the final line: “I think it’s even fewer people than that…”
Before moving the show along, Monty signed off his first round with a gardening-themed flourish, telling viewers: “Before we move on, here are your jobs for the weekend. Do continue to deadhead those Spring bulbs, and for those of you who enjoy tropical plants, it’s a good opportunity to unfleece your banana… on to round two.”
With one episode, Monty had already mixed gardening wit, deadpan political mockery and a headline-making jab at one of Britain’s best-known TV gardeners — making it clear his Have I Got News For You debut was never going to be a quiet one.
