February 2014
After two distinctive episodes which had plenty of laughs alongside the shivers, the third instalment of Inside No. 9, Tom & Gerri, tiptoes into taut psychological thriller territory, with very few giggles indeed, but an end that may haunt you for days.
I have to confess that I thought the second series of Moone Boy had already gone out. Maybe that's because co-writer and co-star Chris O'Dowd has become such a ubiquitous figure on the screen in recent months, what with the IT Crowd finale, his appearance in Girls and his turns in all sorts of American big shot movies. Then I realised that I had, in fact, already seen the very first episode a long time ago but not on Sky.
Nick Helm doesn't exactly like to make things easy for himself. Following the success of Uncle on BBC3 he is returning to the live arena with a vengeance. He has just announced that he is going to do eight "masterworks-in-progress" at the Machynlleth Comedy Festival in May.
Benefit gigs are usually crammed with acts doing quick smash-and-grab sets, partly for the cause, sometimes to try out new material and sometimes, let's not beat around the bush here, to win new fans. This year's benefit for experimental radio station Resonance was different. There was an MC plus only three acts who all had the opportunity to do longer, 30 minutes-ish sets.
When I interviewed Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith about their new anthology series Inside No. 9, Steve Pemberton suggested that there might have been concerns among the BBC's upper echelons that there was no continuing character, nobody to get your teeth into and come back to week after week. Well, having seen two episodes now, it doesn't matter – their tales-of-the-unexpected concept is clearly the thing to get your teeth into and make you come back week after week.
Al Murray has been added to the line-up of this year's Altitude Festival, which takes place in Mayrhofen, Austria from March 31 - April 4. Also joining an impressive bill are Pappy's, Fred MacAuly and Rainer Hersch.
Already announced are John Bishop, Tommy Tiernan, Terry Alderton, Nina Conti, Marcus Brigstocke, Andrew Maxwell and many more. There is a notable surge in the number of women appearing this year too, with Luisa Omielan, Roisin Conaty and Zoe Lyons heading out to the Festival.
Update 11/2/14: I did wonder what Peter Gabriel would make of The Life Of Rock with Brian Pern. Despite a plethora of gags at his expense it appears that he liked it (if this is genuine). Read his response here.
This is a week when the supporting players take centre stage. Fans of C4's Man Down may recognise Mike Wozniak as Greg Davies' hapless accountant chum. Wozniak played a kind of straight man as the lunacy went on all around him in the sitcom, but he allows a little more lunacy into his stand-up set, which has a nice line in offbeat stories.
So the world of BBC panel games has finally entered the 20th Century. Women don't just have the right to vote now, there is more good news. BBC Director of Television Danny Cohen has been quoted in the Observer as saying that "We're not going to have panel shows on any more with no women on them. You can't do that.
Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong have carved out a pretty nifty niche for themselves as C4's top-notch comedy writers with Peep Show and Fresh Meat. In case you've been living under a stone without access to the internet for the last week their latest project for the channel is a bit of a departure. Babylon, directed by Danny Boyle, is a one-off feature-length comedy-drama following a day in the life of a cross-section of London cops.
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