I saw the brilliant new Alan Partridge movie last night. Sorry, I mean I saw the OK new Steve Coogan film The Look of Love. It's an easy mistake to make though. The Look of Love is another example of... more
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I don't know how many comedy gigs i've been too. Let's just say it's a lot more than the number of people who voted for the Lib Dems in South Shields yesterday. Over the years I've seen some pretty... more
This Reginald D Hunter issue still seems to be rumbling on nearly a week after his appearance at the PFA dinner. To quickly recap, Hunter did a set in which he used the n-word and has ruffled... more
I had a difficult time working out how to write a fair review of Jimmy Carr at the Hammersmith Apollo at the weekend. I'm not the biggest fan of Carr's sometimes brutal one-liners but I thought he... more
It was the eminent writer David Quantick who coined the phrase "pop will eat itself" in the 1980s when he was talking about the way musical genres kept cross-referencing each other. Soon afterwards a... more
Maybe I was not paying attention but the new series of 10 O'Clock Live seemed to slip out without much in the way of advance fanfare last night. Perhaps that was a shrewd move. This is the third run... more
Ricky Gervais has got a lot to answer for. Watching a preview of Ben Elton's new BBC sitcom The Wright Way it appears that he has taken his inspiration from When The Whistle Blows, the fictional... more
When I wrote some thoughts about Jack Carroll on Britain's Got Talent recently I sang his praises but wondered whether he wrote his own material. This prompted the following response on Facebook from... more
I've been thinking about Jack Carroll's triumphant first appearance on Britain's Got Talent and have been trying to decide whether it will be good for the 14-year-old's career or not. Plenty of... more
Television seems to be going through one of its phases where it gives comedians interesting jobs rather than just going "ooh look, how about a nice panel game/quiz show to be charismatically... more
