Birmingham comedian Roy Wood Jr. hosting American version of BBC panel show ‘Have I Got News for You’
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WIAT) — Nearly a year after leaving the show that made him a household name, Roy Wood Jr. will be trying his hand with something new.
Wood, a Birmingham-born standup comic who was a correspondent on “The Daily Show” for eight years, will be the host of the American adaptation of the BBC panel show “Have I Got News for You.”
The show, whose initial iteration first started in the United Kingdom in 1990, will be a 10-episode limited series featuring a panel of comedians and personalities who will be humorously quizzed on the events of the day.
“For far too long immigrants have been coming to America and taking black jobs, kudos to CNN and the immigrants at Hat Trick Productions for bringing a Black job to the States,” Wood said in a statement first published in Deadline. “It is an honor to be a part of such a hallowed British institution to help make sense of the American institutions of chaos, name-calling, disinformation, reality television and the 8-hour news cycle.”
Wood, who graduated from Ramsay High School and frequently comes back home to Birmingham, left “The Daily Show” last October after eight years as a “correspondent” on the show. He left in the wake of former host Trevor Noah’s departure, as well as speculation that he himself was up for the job.
In an interview on NPR’s “Morning Edition,” Wood said he left so he could pursue different projects.
“There’s no sense in me doing what I’ve been doing for the last eight years while concurrently trying to think of a new thing to do,” he said. “The job of correspondent, it’s not really one where you can really juggle multiple things, and I think eight years, I’ve earned the right to just take a quick break before January.”
The show will premiere Sept. 14 on CNN and air every Saturday.
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