Can you be funny when it is daylight outside? It’s a challenge for comedy tents at festivals and yesterday it was a challenge for the New Acts of the Year competition, which kicked off at the ungodly hour of 2.30pm. But the line-up was strong and most of the performances committed. They were also being paid £75 each for their five minute sets, which maybe helped. As compere Arthur Smith pointed out £15 a minute is not a bad pay rate.
I missed the press night of this new play about comedian Marty Feldman so I booked a ticket for the next night. Then I made a fatal error. I read the reviews. This play had received such bad notices that I thought about checking with the venue to see if the run had already closed. I thought of that scene in The Producers where they have a sign saying Opening Night that switches to Closing Night as soon as the first disappointed audience leaves the theatre.
Comedian Romesh Ranganathan has announced the autumn leg of his 2016 tour. Details here. The tour now includes a date at London's Eventim Apollo on October 7.
In his new live show Ranganathan explores the rationality of his worldview. ‘Irrational’ will see him examine the issues close to his heart and explain why everybody else is wrong about them.
The BBC has announced a new batch of romantic iPlayer shorts featuring talent including Suranne Jones (Dr Foster), Stephen Mangan (Episodes), Adil Ray (Citizen Khan) and Harry Hill (Harry Hill’s TV Burp).
The new shorts follow the success of BBC iPlayer’s 2015 Funny Valentines, featuring comedians including Bill Bailey, Romesh Ranganathan, Sara Pascoe, Limmy and Nick Helm, which saw 1.3m requests. Nick Helm’s short Elephant has also gone on to receive a Bafta nomination for Best Short Film.
Jo Brand has set off on her Sport Relief trek entitled 'Jo Brand's Hell of a Walk'*. She plans to walk 150 miles across England east to west from Hull to Liverpool.
Philomena Cunk has joined the line-up of experts and academics contributing to BBC2's forthcoming month-long season marking of the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare's death. She will be fronting her own programme called Cunk on Shakespeare.
New settings include a restaurant after closing time, an art gallery and an alpine chalet in 1978.
Watch Ride Along 2 stars Kevin Hart and Ice Cube admire The Midnight Beast's light up laces. Their new video is set in Miami where the boys head after trousering some money from their dead granny.
Satirical sitcom Veep won Best TV Situation Comedy and Deborah Frances-White won Best Radio Comedy for Deborah Frances-White Rolls The Dice at the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain Awards last night.
A special tribute was also made to Writers’ Guild member David Nobbs, who died on 8 August 2015 and was best known for writing the 1970s series The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, adapted from his own novels. Novelist and writer Jonathan Coe, whose novel What a Carve Up! was adapted by David Nobbs, gave a speech in his memory.
Award-winning comic Dave Spikey has extended his Punchlines tour with a series of 2016 dates, kicking off on March 3 in New Brighton.
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