Have they got news for him? Angus Deayton returns to prime time TV

Some people had doubted that Deayton, the master of the deadpan aside, would dare to return to the rigours of a panel show after the utter humiliations of 2002, when he admitted taking cocaine and having sex with a prostitute.

However, his new BBC1 series Would I Lie To You? is in the can, and scheduled for broadcast soon. Comedians David Mitchell and Lee Mack are the team captains, and celebrity panellists challenged to tell the most fantastical stories will include Ulrika Jonsson, Harry Enfield, Myleene Klass and Eamonn Holmes.

By all accounts, Deayton was as immaculately prepared as ever during filming, with well-rehearsed patter and carefully-scripted comic observations.

Executive producer Peter Holmes told the Mail he had no qualms about hiring Deayton. "When it comes to hosting a panel show, there isn't anyone better."

But this is going to be one of those quiet returns without much fanfare, because Angus himself is said to be "pretty nervous" about emerging back in front of the public gaze.

It could be said that his so-called rehabilitation is complete - back on Auntie, performing in the BBC1 primetime slot - and the show will crown a fascinating revival of fortunes for him.

He has come back thanks to the unstinting support of some loyal friends, particularly Richard Curtis (co-founder of Comic Relief) and comedians Stephen Fry and Alan Davies.

All three have sided with him in the face of hostility from another camp of comedians, led by Paul Merton, who famously cannot abide him.

He also, of course, owes a debt of gratitude to long-term girlfriend Lise Mayer - who stood by him despite the revelations that he had taken cocaine, had casual sex with a woman who turned out to be a prostitute and betrayed Lise with a long affair with a friend, who said she slept with him while Mayer was pregnant with their first child.

Lise has encouraged Deayton to attend relationship counselling and he has even been persuaded to try for another baby. The couple already have a son, Isaac, aged six.

So why has Deayton managed to return, while others disgraced by sex and drug allegations - such as John Leslie or Frank Bough - failed? The answer must lie partly, at least, in his seemingly limitless public penance.

Richard Curtis, who gave Deayton his first break in showbusiness in an undergraduate revue at Oxford University, has been instrumental in hooking him up with suitable charity work, burnishing his image.

Curtis has ensured Deayton, 51, has been involved in Red Nose Day every year.

Last summer he also presented the reality show Only Fools On Horses, where socalled celebrities learned to ride.

It was evident that Deayton was non-plussed both by the equestrian art of eventing and by the very minor celebrities, but he stuck to it through gritted teeth.

There has also been corporate socialising: he showed up at ITV's 50th birthday party to show how grateful he was for getting a couple of series of presenting Hell's Kitchen.

There is a belief in some quarters that this is a rather changed Angus Deayton; these days he takes some pains to court personal popularity.

One executive who dealt with him during his brief time at ITV said he was "very popular with the team" on Hell's Kitchen. "I don't think you would have found that was the case on Have I Got News For You?."

He cultivated personal friendships with high-powered TV executives in an effort to destroy his reputation for being arrogant and cold.

Deayton, though, has no shortage of belief in his own desirability. He has done nothing to discourage flattering - but completely false - stories about a "bidding war" for his services between the BBC and ITV1 a few years ago.

And there have been failures, too. A pilot sports quiz show titled Just Like Watching Brazil was never broadcast.

He then fronted a late-night ITV topical quiz called Bognor Or Bust. He was paid around £75,000, but the show was dropped after one series.

There has been something unspectacular about his revival. He acted in Nighty Night, a drama made for BBC3 by the production company Baby Cow, run by his old friend Steve Coogan. He also fronted an undistinguished Beckham documentary last September.

Help Yourself, a clip show for ITV about self-help videos, was universally panned for being smug and unamusing.

Naturally, his earnings dropped dramatically. Back in 2001, he was being paid £50,000 for hosting the Baftas - about £416 per minute.

But post-scandal, he was happy to pick up £15,000 for hosting trade awards ceremonies and the like - apparently he went down a storm at the British Venture Capital Society's annual gathering.

This is a big change, indeed.

When he was at the peak of his career, he gained a reputation for being "hard-headed" if not greedy about money.

His £400,000-a-year contract to present Have I Got News For You? is a case in point - his earnings quadrupled during the life-span of the programme.

So his exposure in a Sunday tabloid was a calamity. The public mockery was torture and his humbling at the hands of Have I Got News For You? team captains Merton and Ian Hislop, both of whom had come to dislike him, was worst of all.

But although the matter appeared closed, his humiliation was not yet complete. Five months later, Deayton's mistress, Stacey Herbert, came forward. She claimed that during their affair she had procured prostitutes for him, as she had been unable to satisfy his sexual appetite.

She also said she had joined Deayton and Miss Mayer on holiday and slept with him then - even though Lise was, at the time, pregnant with their son.

There was nothing more that his publicist, the powerful Matthew Freud, could do, and Deayton was sacked.

He spoke sorrowfully about being "forced to go" and his first instinct was to sue, but no writ was ever issued. Instead, Deayton concentrated on patching up his relationship with Miss Mayer, a leading TV and film scriptwriter.

The couple are, in fact, so happily reconciled that they tried to have another baby after his disgrace. But with Miss Mayer now 49, it looks unlikely.

So how has Angus Deayton managed to save his relationship? Some insight is offered by a friend of the couple's who saw them recently at a social gathering and said there was a shift in the balance of power in the relationship.

The daughter of an academic (her father David is a theatrical historian and reader in drama at Manchester University), it is fair to say that nothing in Lise's background prepared her for such louche betrayals.

Initially, she concluded that his behaviour was commonplace in showbiz circles. Many marriages, she said, went through such a crisis.

"Men are different, aren't they?" she said. "For a start, men seem to be able to separate sex and emotion in a way most women just can't understand."

So why has she been so understanding? The answer is partly because of the debt of gratitude she feels she owes Deayton for standing by her through the IVF treatment before the birth of their son.

"Parenthood has been a very long, hard road," she explained shortly after his infidelities became public knowledge. "Isaac is an IVF baby and people who have had years of fertility treatment know it is very stressful on both people in the relationship.

"I know there has been this shocking betrayal, but the person I have been with for nine years is generous and supportive and has been absolutely fantastic when I have been ill."

A private man, he quietly agreed to attend several sessions of counselling with his partner, even though to Deayton, the son of an insurance salesman and a cookery teacher and brought up in an impeccably middle-class fashion in Oxford, the concept is quite alien.

For him to open up to a complete stranger about the most intimate and embarrassing secrets of his private life must then have been purgatory.

And the bare fact is that Lise loves him. In the early days, she would save sandwiches and puddings for him in the hospitality suite when he had finished filming episodes of Have I Got News For You?.

She is still devoted to him, and has been supportive during his journey back into the spotlight. But whether the public, too, have forgiven him remains to be seen.