Bruce Dessau
I think the first modern example of character comedy I ever saw was Edna Everage, followed shortly by John Shuttleworth about two decades ago. After him there seemed to be a flurry of weird eccentrics on the circuit from the Pub Landlord to Otis Lee Crenshaw via Count Arthur Strong.
When does a topical gag stop being topical? And, maybe more importantly, when does a topical gag stop being funny? I've been thinking about this a lot lately, partly because nearly a year on I'm still hearing comedians do jokes about the sodden Jubilee Pageant and the sodding Olympics and partly because there are so many outlets for up-to-the-nanosecond satire that old jokes – even good ones that would have once had a few days to shine are in danger of becoming redundant more quickly than ever due to overexposure.
This is a week bookended by Michael McIntyre, so if you are like the wag who just posted "thanks for the warning" on my Facebook page and maybe don't appreciate rapidfire, smiley observational humour, take a holiday now. For the remaining millions of you still out there and still reading, I was writing recently about comedians doing low-key try-out gigs in clubs and Michael McIntyre is so used to playing megavenues his gig tonight at the Bloomsbury Theatre is a handy warm-up for his appearance at C4's Comedy Gala next Saturday.
Let's get one thing straight. I'm certainly not backtracking on my opinion of Ben Elton's pitiful sitcom. But at the same time I've found some of the objections to The Wright Way particularly interesting.
"The apotheosis of comic dislocation". It's a description I once read about the Chuckle Brothers, but I think it could just as easily describe Terry Alderton. What on earth is going on in the Essex comic's bonce when he is performing onstage? Weird characters emerge, bizarre conversations erupt, the universe is turned on its head, as Alderton is himself at the end of the gig. Is he talking out of his arse?
The last time I went to see Eddie Pepitone it was downstairs at the Tron pub during the Edinburgh Festival last summer and I had to fight my way past a minor kerfuffle outside. As I squeezed past the group I noticed Hugh Grant at the centre of it. The actor was on a flying visit to the Fringe and also wanted to see Pepitone that night. Unfortunately an issue with IDs among his entourage meant that he didn't make it in.
Three episodes into its third series 10 O'Clock Live seems to have entered adolescence and has got a bit surly and angry. It is good, but it could still be even better. In the first in an occasional series offering careers advice, here is my ten-point plan to making 10 O'Clock Live essential viewing
1. Do something about the rainbow-coloured set – it's like an old disused Top of The Pops set tarted up with Fisher Price paints to look like a children's nightclub.
Interesting to hear today that Lee Mack and Catherine Tate are going to star in a UK remake of the American sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond entitled The Smiths. I can't predict if the UK version, relocated to Cheshire, will be a hit, but it sounds well cast. Both Mack and Tate have a track record at the kind of broad comedy that Raymond excelled at and they also have a track record of working well together.
"Three stars, but it read like a four," "Four stars, but it read like a three," "Five stars, but it read like a one." You can't win when star ratings are added to reviews.
The O2 Arena or Ye Olde Rose & Crown in Walthamstow? For me there is not really any choice. Last night arena-filler Alan Carr popped into the north London pub to try out some new material. It was the kind of surprise that makes a good pub gig into an unforgettable pub gig. And it is the sort of thing that can only really happen in comedy.
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