BCG Daily Saturday 27th December 2014

Comedy stars lined up for new Darwen comedy club

Some of the country's top comics could soon be gracing the stage of Darwen Library Theatre after the launch of a new comedy club.

First class! The Two Ronnies get their own stamps

Comedians Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett among those honoured in the latest series of stamps from the Royal Mail.

Micky Flanagan on getting caught up in Christmas

"My wife loves Christmas. Suddenly I live in a grotto. Like a lot of men, Christmas is something that happens to you..."

Graham Linehan would love to do a IT Crowd spin-off

The creator of the cult comedy would like to give Matt Berry's vile boss Douglas Reynholm his own show.

Radio Times review

Hal Cruttenden is one of those nicely dressed middle-class comedians that you assume will skip through a cosy routine about school runs in the 4x4 and posh supermarkets. Instead he starts off with some alarming gags about why Santa Claus and the tooth fairy are scary. "I want to be a political comic but I can't be bothered to do the reading," he adds before launching into a distinctly political tirade that touches on the NHS, pensions and Iraq.

Also on the bill are Mancunian Justin Moorhouse, who gets some laughs out of his northern origins and Canadian Tom Stade, who says some pretty harsh things about getting old.

Outnumbered star David Ryall has died

David Ryall, the English character actor who was a familiar face in an array of TV favourites, has died. The actor played the grandfather in the hit BBC comedy Outnumbered but was a well-known presence in a variety of other small-screen hits such as The Singing Detective, Goodnight Sweetheart and The Village.

Mel B's appearance on Big Fat Quiz: Twitter reaction

The former Spice Girl's failure to get into the spirit of things saw her trending on the social media site.

Ricky Tomlinson: I'll whinge until they're made to pay

In 1973, Ricky Tomlinson spent Christmas in prison after picketing a strike. More than 40 years later, one of our best-loved actors says that the fight to clear the names of the Shrewsbury 24 faces a final hurdle: government secrecy.

My highlight: Mapp and Lucia

I was worried when I heard there was to be a new TV adaptation of E.F. Benson's wonderful novels of interwar snobbery, but Miranda Richardson and Anna Chancellor are a credit to the great man.

Opinion: can Dapper Laughs come back?

As comedy goes it could not have been more meta if Stewart Lee had made a cameo appearance. Just when we thought we'd seen the last of him Dapper Laughs released a new video on YouTube on Christmas Day in which he returned to earth from a buxom wench-filled heaven and put his creator, Daniel O'Reilly in his place for attempting to kill him off by donning an existentialist's black polo neck and appearing on Newsnight.

Mel B was painful to watch on The Big Fat Quiz

It's probably safe to say Mel B won't be asked back on to The Big Fat Quiz Of The Year anytime soon. The X Factor judge's sour face, snooty comments and sheer lack of enthusiasm was very awkward to watch.

This year in comedy, part one

There have been countless brand new television programmes broadcast this year, with some of my favourites including Uncle, House of Fools, Doll & Em, The Walshes, Inside No.9, Alan Davies: As Yet Untitled and Siblings.

Radio Times review

Some people got a bit carried away and said this was even better than Harry Enfield's 1989 masterpiece, Norbert Smith: A Life. Steady on. But it was the best example yet of Enfield and Paul Whitehouse's resurgence as satirists who have the happy air of not caring a jot what anyone thinks, whom they upset or whether every impression quite works. Spoofing the entire half-century output of BBC2 led to many lovingly crafted jewels and included several things you suspect H&P actually like, but ripped the piss out of anyway. Linking the scattered bits was Enfield in a Comedy Award-winning turn as a sweeping, Schamanic presenter. That he was wandering round a deserted TV Centre underlined the sad subtext of golden eras having passed.

Radio Times review

Back after a three-year hiatus, the cleverest stand-up on TV had refined his tantric anti-comedy about comedy still further, flipping riffs this way and that for minutes on end like some sort of hilarity jazz trumpeter. Childish vandalism of a road sign to Shilbottle; UKIP; or Lee's own feelings of utter uselessness at being a middle-aged, vasectomised father of two drinking real ale every night: he can now work any subject up into comic nirvana by remorselessly observing not the detail of a thing, but the essence. And he made his new antagonist Chris Morris corpse. Twice.