Trust me, that is Jon Richardson on the screen in the distance in this picture, even if he is looking unusually muscular. One of the perennial problems of the comedy tent at Latitude is that it is too bloody popular. By the time headliner Richardson came on you were lucky to get a view of him onscreen sitting outside the tent. On the plus side the sun was shining and the sound was crystal clear.
In the absence of Daniel Kitson the coolest comedian at this year’s festival is Tim Key. Though as he joked throughout his show, he is a comedian who hasn’t quite been invited onto the comedy stage yet, having shuttled between the literature and theatre tents in the past. This year he was in the poetry tent, which felt right. Not to big, not too hot, and, of course, he had plenty of joyous so-bad-they-are-brilliant poems printed on the back of saucy laminated playing cards to read out.
Russell Kane said that comedians aren’t supposed to do Latitude two years in a row but he loves it so much he begged the organisers to let him come back this year. Good call. Kane and Latitude are made for each other. The Essex-born comic is obsessed by Englishness and class and Englishness and class permeates every corner of "Lattetude", as Kane always calls it.
The BBC has decided not to make any more episodes of acclaimed Afghanistan-set sitcom Bluestone 42 after three series and 21 episodes. The writers James Cary and Richard Hurst have issued the following statement on Cary's blog sitcomgeek.
Writing the perfect sitcom is the Holy Grail of comedy. Get it right and you will be carried through the city on people’s shoulders. Get it wrong and you might as well go and hide under a stone. Look at the brickbats aimed at Ben Elton’s The Wright Way. Even the co-writer of Blackadder got it wrong.
Update 4/1/16: Jenny Eclair's latest novel Moving has just been chosen as a Richard & Judy Book Club read.
Comedian Jenny Eclair’s latest novel, Moving, is published on July 23. Set in Kennington, Didsbury and Chelsea, it is described as “a novel of family secrets, shocking betrayals and, most of all, home.”
As we’ve explained previously comedian Luke Toulson took the problem of getting preview slots by the scruff of the neck and set up his own comedy night on Wednesdays at Crack Comedy. He has been previewing his own show and has also had some fantastic guests previewing theirs. This week is no exception as Paul Sinha is in the house. Sinha is very much a man of many parts.
At first glance you might think that People Just Do Nothing is pretty niche youth programming from BBC3. A fly-on-the-wall documentary about a bunch of baseball capped no-marks running a pirate radio station called Kurupt FM in Brentford? Hardly crossover potential surely. But you’d be wrong. I’ve got a friend who works for Stannah Stairlift-advertising Saga magazine who doesn’t know his garage from his grime and he loves it. He has excellent taste.
Lolly Adefope was already on my list of people to tip for Edinburgh, honest, and then last night she made it through to the final of the inaugural Magners Comedy Act 2015. A the final Adefope will be doing a short set but in Edinburgh she will be doing a full hour for the first time. I’ve only seen her do short sets so far but I’ve been mightily impressed by her comic instincts.
The trailer for the film version of BBC3 sitcom Bad Education has just been released. In it we get a taste of the antics that Alfie Wickers and his class get up to in Cornwall on the school trip to end all school trips. Incidents include Wickers – played by Jack Whitehall – tea-bagging a swan and whizzing down a zip-wire with his trousers around his ankles. It looks pretty gross but also pretty funny. The film is released on August 21.
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