10. Preview – Camping

A story about Julia Davis writing a shopping list would probably get comedy fans flocking to Beyond The Joke, so when we reported that the Nighty Night creator was making a three-part comedy for Sky Atlantic with an all-star cast including Steve Pemberton, Vikki Pepperdine and Rufus Jones, readers were positively drooling over their keyboards.

9. John Bishop Talk Show Announced

This came out of the blue a bit. John Bishop is best known as a talker but this time he was going to be a listener too - interviewing some great names in an in-depth series for digital channel W. Among those lined up were James Corden and Steve Coogan. There were never going to be any long silences with Bishop around.

8. Harry Hill Reforms Pub Band

One of the less headline-making deaths this year was the sad loss of Matt Bradstock-Smith, who played keyboards with Harry Hill’s Pub Band in the show that was Perrier-nominated in the mid-1990s. Two decades on Hill and Al Murray put the band together again to raise money for the hospice where Bradstock-Smith passed away. 

7. Camping Review

See 10 - the mega-dark series went out to rave reviews including this one.

6. Micky Flanagan Announces Tour

Is the comedy bubble bursting? Not judging by the number of arena dates Micky Flanagan is playing on his 2017 tour. More gigs keep getting added and more readers keep coming back to this story in the hope of bagging a ticket.

5. Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle: Migrants – Review

Lee’s BBC2 series was not recommissioned this year but not before a number of brilliant episodes aired including this one, which was about Migrants but also about much more. Not surprisingly it picked up even more hits after the Brexit result…

4. John Oliver Nails Brexit Campaign

Well the liberal intelligentsia loved John Oliver’s anti-Brexit tirade. After this clip from his satirical show went viral Remain had it in the bag on June 23rd….

3. Fleabag Review

The most talked-about TV comedy of the year started out via BBC3 and over the weeks more and more people were discovering it. Long after it had gone out people were still clicking on this review to find out what all the fuss was about.

2. Porridge Remake 

We might pride ourselves on having sophisticated, modern taste in comedy, but when it was announced that the classic sitcom Porridge was being remade it felt like the whole world wanted to know who was in it and was coming to Beyond The Joke to see the cast list. 

1. Josh Widdicombe Interview

If page visits are an indication of how hot you are as a comedian then 2016 was definitely Josh Widdicombe’s year. This is actually an old interview but as new fans discovered him for the first time when he appeared on a dizzying range of programmes including Countryfile they wanted to know more about him. Search terms which brought them to this page ranged from the inevitable “has Josh Widdicombe got a girlfriend?” to “what is Josh Widdicombe’s disability?” and “Is Josh Widdicombe Ann Widdicombe’s (sic) son?”. My personal favourite was “Has Josh Widdicombe only got one leg?”.