Two years ago I decided to go to the Edinburgh Fringe solo. Between signing up for a show and actually performing it, I lost a grandfather to cancer and then decided to take my comedy “career” more seriously. In the same breath I also decided to make the donation bucket for the show for Prostate Cancer. These two opposing decisions meant I had an interesting Fringe. The short story is three agents came to see me. I'd approached none of them.
It was Channel 4’s annual comedy gala on Friday and as usual the previewers – me included – billed it as the cream of British comedy from Michael McIntyre down. But looking at the line-up did set me thinking. The comedians on the bill all deserve to be there, but there are others that comedy seems to have overlooked. What about the ones that got away? The comedians who should have made it big?
There has been a major crossover between science and comedy in recent years, with the likes of Robin Ince, Dara O Briain, Brian Cox and Simon Singh blurring boundaries. But the crossover between science, comedy and Belgium is a new one on me. Lieven Scheire is said to be Belgium’s funniest physicist (insert your own gag here if you must). In his latest show The Wonderful World of Lieven Scheire he discusses concepts such as Einstein’s theory of relativity and is both funny and accessible.
It says Film Review above so it must be a film. There is something not quite right about watching Special Correspondents on a laptop (in bed, if you want to know). Ricky Gervais chose to go with Netflix rather than a cinema release but I’m not sure if it is the right decision. Having said that, Special Correspondents is a great TV movie.
Craig Cash directs, produces and stars in Rovers, a brand-new original Sky 1 comedy that drops in on the lives of the indomitable fans of Redbridge Rovers – a struggling lower league football team.
The series is written by comedians Joe Wilkinson (Him & Her, 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown) and David Earl (aka Brian Gittins), who also make appearances in the series as wind-up merchants Bruce and Lee.
Cash plays loveable die-hard Rovers fan Pete Mott and is reunited with his The Royle
David Baddiel has come under fire from the Mail for being responsible for a programme that made jokes about the Queen's sex life on the day of the Queen's 90th birthday celebrations.
Don’t write the obituary of stand-up on TV just yet. Live at the Apollo might have been shunted to BBC2 but Stewart Lee seems to have done pretty well there and Russell Howard is fronting a second series of his stand-up showcase on Comedy Central later this year.
Jason Manford did an unexpected stand-up set last night - in the middle of classic musical Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
Manford is currently playing Caractacus Potts in the touring production and when a cast member was taken ill during the performance at Southend's Cliffs Pavilion the show had to pause while the understudy prepared to go on.
Instead of leaving the audience getting wrestless Manford went onstage and did a fifteen-minute stand-up set.
Update 16/9: A new London date has just been added. It is at the Forum, NW5 on December 19 and tickets have just gone on sale here. Please note this one will be John Robins reading from his, erm, autobiography, A Robins Amongst The Pigeons, with the aid of Elis James. For other dates see below.
The Underbelly has announced a new batch of comedy shows running at this summer's Edinburgh Fringe.
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