Paul Merton says falling in love with his wife Suki Webster "felt natural"

In a joint interview with The Times, Paul has now recalled how his relationship with fellow comic Suki, 58, began during a tour of India with their improv troupe, The Comedy Store Players.

Both had been unwell and turned to brandy and cola to try to settle their stomachs.

Paul said: "I suppose this was about six or seven months (after Sarah's death.)

"I don't think it's one of those decisions you can make. You see what happens. You're not looking necessarily, because you have to grieve.

"But we were in India, we were on brandy and there was a magician in the dark. You don't think anything except, 'This is great fun'.

"You don't think, 'Oh, is this right or wrong?' It felt natural. It felt OK."

Suki added: "When you fall in love, you fall in love."

Paul's first marriage was to actress Caroline Quentin, now 64.

The pair wed in 1990 and separated after seven years.

Three years later he married Sarah, who had once been Caroline's understudy in Arthur Smith's Live Bed Show.

After Sarah's death, Paul said he found comfort by returning to comedy.

In 2019 he told the Daily Mail's Event magazine about her passing: "She died on a Monday. Six days later I went down to The Comedy Store to watch the Sunday show, just to be in a room where 300 people were laughing.

"It goes back to that thing about the release, the relief, it takes you somewhere else."

He added: "When you're improvising and you're in the moment, it's as refreshing for you as it is for the audience. Plus, we have the extra joy of creating that laughter. In my more romantic moments I think there's no higher calling."

Born Paul Martin, the comic adopted Merton as a stage name when joining Equity.

His breakthrough came in 1988 on Channel 4's Whose Line Is It Anyway? but success was interrupted by a six-week stay at the Maudsley psychiatric hospital after a breakdown.

Paul recalled: "I was in a room for group therapy after breakfast every morning. There was somebody who had been kicked out of their council house.

"Somebody else said his daughter was heavily into drugs. All these terrible things were happening to them.

"My thing was that somebody had cancelled a television series. I never said that in the session, because I knew: 'That's awkward.' I still had a sense of proportion and a sense of humour about it."

Despite initially rejecting Have I Got News For You because he did not consider himself a topical comic, Paul has gone on to become a fixture of the programme for more than 25 years.