Rosie Wilby’s acclaimed podcast The Breakup Monologues starts 2020 with two announcements and a brand new season.
The Breakup Monologues is one of 11 successful recipients of the Pulse Award, an initiative from the British Podcast Awards and Wellcome to produce content that drives conversations around public health.
Acclaimed anthology series Inside No 9 looks set to return for a fifth series sooner rather than later in 2020.
Co-creator Reece Shearsmith tweeted on New Year's Day: "Inside No.9. Series 5. Soon. (Ish). I know the wait has been like..." (see picture below)
The latest run of the series was filmed early in 2019 and Shearsmith later added on social media that the long wait was not his fault: "Was ready to show in April last year. Nothing to do with us!"
Broadcasting regulator Ofcom has received complaints about a joke about Greta Thunberg told by comedian Rosie Jones on the Last Leg's New Year's Eve Special on Channel 4.
On the show, fronted by Adam Hills, Josh Widdicombe and Alex Brooker, Jones said: "Greta's amazing and what she's doing is brilliant. But don't do it now. She needs to live a little, she's only 16. She should be doing two things - drinking Lambrini and getting fingered."
As I've written elsewhere, difficult times make for difficult comedies and there have been some shows in 2019 that barely fit into the traditional comedy template. You can read about those here although one also features in this list by virtue of it having laughs as well as a more reflective, emotional side.
The new sitcom from the team behind Outnumbered starring Brenda Blethyn is being filmed in January and February 2020 and you can apply for free tickets here at the link below.
In Kate and Koji Blethyn will take on the title role of Kate alongside film actor Jimmy Akingbola taking on the role of Koji.
2019 is probably the worst year for comedy deaths since Beyond The Joke launched. Maybe it's in part down to the original 1980s wave of alternative comedians getting older, maybe it's due to life on the road and the general stress of a career in comedy and/or showbiz/acting taking its toll, but it's been sad to see some great names young and old and from both sides of the Atlantic Iand Oz) leave us in 2019.
Here is a round-up of just some of those figures who will be missed.
So as we approach the end of 2019, what have been the top rating stories on Beyond The Joke. To be perfectly honest this list doesn't necessarily mean much. Other stories have clearly been more important, but maybe, due in part to the mysterious workings of Google's algorithms they didn't get as much traction as they deserved. Or maybe they didn't get retweeted by someone with millions of followers. But a quick look at the chart below does reveal one thing.
A recent interview with comedian and Catastrophe co-writer Rob Delaney in the Guardian made me stop and think. He mentioned that he was writing a new pilot. He wouldn't say more except that "it’s funny, but is it a comedy? I don’t know if it is. But is there funny in it? Yeah."
Apples and oranges, chalk and cheese, octopus and banana. How do you compare one comedy gig to another when styles and genres these days are so varied?
So here are my top comedy gigs of 2019 very much in no particular order. Impossible to pick one out, but hopefully if you've been reading beyond the joke over the last twelve months some of these are favourites of yours too.
John Kearns - Soho Theatre
Tim Minchin – Eventim Apollo
At any other time of the year I might have given this relatively benign Hugh Grant profile a particularly wide berth, but in the run-up to Christmas it seemed to hit the spot. Let's put it another way. I'd rather sit through an hour of Grant clips and self-deprecating quips than sit through the whole of Love, Actually.
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