Following the postponement of his appearances last autumn psychic Shirley Ghostman's ‘Spooktactular’ (now not on ice due to insurance reasons) will be taking place in October 2016.
8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown is nominated for a TV Choice Award. C4's mashed-up comedy quiz show is up for Best Entertainment Show alongside Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway (ITV), Celebrity Juice (ITV2) and The Graham Norton Show (BBC1).
Elsewhere Russell Howard's Good News is in the running for Best Comedy alongside Benidorm (ITV), Birds Of A Feather (ITV) and Stella (Sky1).
Comedian Simon Brodkin attempted to interrupt a speech by Donald Trump about the Brexit vote at the Turnberry golf course in Scotland today.
The Republican Presidential hopeful was about to speak when Brodkin appeared in wig and glasses. He started speaking and produced a red golf ball with a swastika on it before being dragged away by security.
Trump responded by saying: "Get him out!"
It’s Pete Sinclair that I feel sorry for. Among others of course. He is one of the writers of C4’s Power Monkeys and as if it wasn’t hard enough already to write a whole sitcom episode in a day, he now has to write funny jokes about a situation that I suspect he doesn’t find very funny. Caveat - I know Pete is sharp and clever so I’m assuming he supported Remain. That’s my educated guess, but I think this piece will make sense even if I’m barking up the wrong tree.
Kate Phillips has been appointed Controller, Entertainment Commissioning. The role replaces Mark Linsey, who is now Director of BBC Studios.
Star Wars star Mark Hamill has joined the cast for the new series of the Greg Davies sitcom Man Down on Channel 4.
The third series, returning in July, will also feature actor Steven Berkoff as a school caretaker and Sir Tony "Baldrick" Robinson, alongside returning regulars Roisin Conaty, Mike Wozniak, Stephanie Cole, Jeany Spark and Gwyneth Powell.
One of Rik Mayall’s very last projects was to play a modern version of Fagin. In the months leading up to his sudden death on June 9, 2014 Mayall had been collaborating on a script with American writer Kevin Armento and Carlos Davis, writer/producer of Mayall's 1991 movie Drop Dead Fred. In the piece below Armento recalls the thrill of working with Mayall. Although he did not know Mayall’s British TV work when he first met him, he soon realised that he was in the presence of a comic genius.
I think I laughed more when I was at the Edinburgh show by Adam Hess than at any show last summer. I have to qualify that, however, by saying that I couldn’t remember many of the actual jokes afterwards, but that was because they flew around the room at such a fast and furious pace that I was still chuckling at one punchline when the next one hit me. He more than deserved his Best Newcomer nomination. I do remember that there was a lot about his childhood, something about nosebleeds and something else about hiding under a bed.
Sometimes overnight success takes years. Seymour Mace has been bouncing around on the comedy circuit for well over a decade now, but it was only last year that he picked up an Edinburgh Comedy Award nomination for a show that tied together all the madness of his previous outings in one neat package. There was stand-up, a game show element and props that evoked the childlike, anarchic, freeform spirit of Vic Reeves Big Night.
When you go to a lot of comedy competitions you start to see the same faces popping up in the finals. I spotted the very talented Bilal Zafar about a year ago and earlier this year he won the New Act of the Year competition, which is the most prestigious of the umpteen newbie competitions you can enter. The East London stand-up has made his name with a brilliantly honed routine about a Twitter spat over what was thought to be a Muslim-only cake shop.
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