October 2013
Hold the proverbial front page. Stop the so-called presses. Man Down is not yet another school-based sitcom. When I heard that Greg Davies would be playing a teacher in his self-penned sitcom debut I assumed this would pick up similar themes to Big School and Bad Education. Particularly as Davies has carved out a bit of a blackboard-based niche for himself playing Mr Gilbert in The Inbetweeners.
Not sure if this new 'play at home via Twitter' show, hosted by David Mitchell, is the first interactive panel game, but even if it is it is still hard to tell it apart from all the other panel games on the box at the moment.
I've interviewed Rik Mayall a few times and he was probably just as odd before his major quad bike crash as after it. This interview dates from 2003, five years after his accident, and while the chat was supposed to be about the live tour of Bottom with Ade Edmondson, the head injury that nearly killed him was still, no pun intended, on his mind. Mayall is about to return to our screens as the dad of Greg Davies in the new sitcom Man Down, which starts on C4 on October 18.
This is one of those crazy busy comedy weeks that makes it worth living in London. You could easily see a top show every night – if you can afford it – and still not catch everything, so without further ado I'll rattle through your options.
The Brighton Comedy Festival is the first really notable festival after Edinburgh and brings a number of Fringe hits to the south coast this year, such as Bridget Christie and Sara Pascoe, alongside innovative new shows. This year's fun started in familiar style with the big guns from management company Off The Kerb helping to raise funds for local HIV charity Sussex Beacon.
To the opening night of Micky Flanagan's London arena stint last night. Three nights at Wembley plus seven nights at the O2 Arena might not quite be a record but it wouldn't surprise me if the cockney comic broke the record for bar takings yesterday. The show started late because people were still buying drinks and during the interval - and I've never seen this before - one could not walk through the corridors because of endless multiple snaking queues of fans topping up before the second half.
I've heard plenty in the media recently about the comedy industry still being riddled with sexism, but I've heard less about the industry being riddled with ageism. Well, not much anyway. I was watching Alexei Sayle on Breakfast TV this morning and the sixtyish stand-up was saying that one of the most gratifying aspects of his comeback shows is the fact that there are so many young people in his audiences.
I was asked recently if I thought comedians made it big quicker these days. It's an interesting question. I guess the question arose for two reasons. Firstly because so many comedians are playing massive arena gigs while still relatively young and secondly because maybe the internet is speeding things up.
The second series of Comedy Central's Alternative Comedy Experience is due to start in February 2014 but before then a DVD of the first series is to be released on November 18. This is the same day many of the big name live DVDs, including those from Adam Hills and Sean Lock, are released.
In a bid to keep Britain cheery and share the love of laughter this Christmas, UKTV channel Gold has launched a national competition to find the perfect Christmas cracker joke. Gold is offering a £5000 prize and a chance for the winner to feel like a member of the royal family and have their very own personalised Christmas crackers made.
Pages
Zircon - This is a contributing Drupal Theme
Design by
WeebPal.
