BCG Daily Tuesday 5th January 2016

Barry Humphries: BBC insisted I mock Cameron as well

Barry Humphries, the Australian comedian best known for playing Dame Edna Everage, has mocked the BBC for refusing to let him make jokes about Jeremy Corbyn without also ridiculing David Cameron.

The builder swapping jobs with his stand-up daughter

For a show under construction at Battersea Arts Centre, Joanna Griffin is teaching the art of comedy to her 72-year-old bricklayer father. The first lesson? Stop laughing at your own jokes.

Chris Addison makes Royal Opera debut

Comedian and actor Chris Addison will make his Royal Opera debut in February's "fabulously frothy" L'Étoile in a role specially created by director Mariame Clément.

Billionaire Boy review

All in all, it's a very enjoyable way to spend an hour collapsed on the sofa post-Christmas if you've got kids, or even if you're over 30 and still watch kids' television.

The Comic Strip gives a satirical kicking to Brooks

With The Comic Strip's latest fantasy screening this month, its creators talk about their phone-hacking parody and why they set it in the Seventies.

Lesley Joseph is the voice of Lady Elizabeth Bernard

Birds Of A Feather actress Lesley Joseph is the voice of Lady Elizabeth Bernard in a Northampton show. The Masque Theatre's production of Shaxpeare's Box is a new comedy.

Radio Times review

It's a terrible sitcom this. Obscene, shallow, full of unpleasant characters. But from its evil comic stew moments always bubble up that make you splutter with a sort of guilty laughter.

This episode sees the reappearance of our siblings' mother (Stella Gonet) and, in a new development, their hippie aunt Leslie (Sally Phillips), who takes a shine to doofus Dan. But as ever the best scenes belong to Charlotte Ritchie as his heartless sister Hannah, who believes she is at last having a Golden Week when everything goes right. It builds to a heroically tasteless climax as she appears in an R&B video while sweating more than the part strictly demands.