The City of London Festival kicks off this week and it has a pretty impressive comedy line-up. But then it should have – the guy running it is Paul Gudgin, who previously ran the Edinburgh Fringe, so he should know a thing or three about stand-up. The shows are a mixture of finished product and Edinburgh warm-ups. Jenny Eclair, for instance, is doing her current touring show, Eclairious, on June 24, while Bridget Christie (June 25) and Richard Herring (June 28) will be running in their next shows. They might not be the finished article but they still ought to be pretty good. And, in case you haven't heard, the venue is an inflatable bowler hat, so leave all you pins at home or the festival may really start with a bang. 

I’m hoping for a trip to the seaside this week. Dawn French is touring her debut solo show,  30 Million Minutes, at the moment. She hasn't announced any London dates yet, so the nearest she is coming to the capital is Brighton. She is at the Theatre Royal from June 24 - 28. The show has been getting some interesting reviews so far. It is not straight stand-up but does promise plenty of laughs. And there may be an added poignancy now, as French was a friend and colleague of Rik Mayall. In fact one of the last shows I saw in Brighton was Mayall in a live version of Bottom with Ade Edmondson and he was as funny then as he had been nearly three decades earlier as Kevin Turvey. Let's hope French on her own is as funny as she was for all those years with Mrs Ade Edmondson, Jennifer Saunders.