The organisers of this long-running competition have the motto "New Variety Lives" but this year's show seemed to specialise in old variety. While this final has previously thrown up stand-up greats... more
Reviews
It's been a funny old year for sketch group with attitude Gein's Family Giftshop. The trio (plus non-performing writer Kiri Pritchard McLean) lost a member just before Edinburgh and had to do... more
It’s getting increasingly difficult to keep up with all of the comedy coming out of Netflix. I’d only just finished the excellent The Good Place when A Futile And Stupid Gesture popped up. At least... more
BBC Three must either be cursing Derry Girls or thanking it. The hit Channel 4 sitcom has beaten them to the screens with a ribald comedy charting the lives of badly behaving hormonal Irish... more
For strictly one night only the Whyte and Mackay Glasgow Comedy Festival came to London. Appropriately on Burns night. There was no haggis, but the audience did get a distinctive taste of what is in... more
Philosophy seems to be a suitable subject for comedy at the moment. Ethical issues have been one of the strands of the brilliant Netflix series The Good Place and now here comes Robert Newman with... more
The second episode of this 1980s-set coming-of-age Irish sitcom written by Lisa McGee proves that the brilliance of the first episode of Derry Girls was not a fluke. Which is lucky for Channel 4 as... more
The third series of comedy thriller Witless has just come out on iPlayer in one big five-episode dollop. And if you think Leanne and Rhona are going to be able to go back to their boring, ordinary... more
What's in a name? Scrotal Recall always felt more like the title of a Dapper Laughs DVD than a sensitive comedy about modern romance so Netflix has been canny – though some might also say prudish –... more
Typical. You wait ages for an anthology series of twisted one-offs and then two come along at the same time. Inside No. 9 kicks off on BBC2 on January 2 but before then the entire boxed set of... more
