BCG Daily Thursday 8th March 2018

How Mum creator relit our love for sitcom

Stefan Golaszewski has written two of the BBC's best-received sitcoms of recent years. Him & Her took viewers into the lives of 20-somethings Steve and Becky in their cramped flat in London. Mum - starring Oscar nominee Lesley Manville (Phantom Thread) - is pulling in viewers with its painfully tentative romance between recently widowed Cathy and old friend Michael.

Douglas Adams talks. Part 4

After Parts One, Two and Three, the final part of my 1980 interview with Douglas Adams...

Celebrating Hitchhiker's Guide at 40

Douglas Adams' seminal radio comedy aired on the BBC 40 years ago today. We celebrate its life, universe and everything...

Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em review

No-one's going to mistake Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em for essential theatre, but the accomplished cast and Unsworth's affectionate approach makes for an entertaining, retro evening. As our hapless hero might put it: "Mmmm. Nice!"

Paddington 2 review

There's some wonderful childish wit throughout and just to see a room full of Hugh Grant headshots is worthy reason if any to watch Paddington 2.

Interview with Griefcast's Cariad Lloyd

Airing for the first time in 2016, GriefCast has become a huge word-of-mouth hit and a regular fixture on the iTunes chart.

Paul Chahidi interview

Paul Chahidi says the characters on BBC comedy This Country have a 'deep-seated vulnerability'.

Kenneth William's alarm clock sells for £1,000+

An alarm clock that helped Carry On star Kenneth Williams turn up on time for every film shoot sold for more than £1,000 when it went under the hammer yesterday.

Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em was a classic

A new stage version of the Seventies sitcom opens this week - but can we still laugh at its 'simple' hero?

Is Facebook killing online comedy?

Earlier this year, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced major changes to the social network's algorithm. "You'll see less public content like posts from businesses, brands and media," he wrote in, predictably, a Facebook status. "The public content you see ... should encourage meaningful interactions between people."

Less than two weeks later, longstanding comedy video website Funny or Die made another round of redundancies, after laying off roughly 30% of its staff in 2016. The website's CEO, Mike Farah, vented his frustration, tweeting: "There is simply no money in making comedy online any more. Facebook has completely destroyed independent digital comedy."

Big Train at 20

The spectacularly surreal sketch show with a cast of future stars.

10 female comedians pick the funniest women on TV

This year's Funny Women Awards are being held next week, celebrating the fastest-rising female voices in the worlds of stand-up and comedy. To mark the forthcoming occasion, and International Women's Day 2018, we asked some of this year's nominees which funny women on our screens they most admire, and look up to.

Still Game review

A welcome, hilarious return to Craiglang.

'Vile' death threats against Flo & Joan

'Vile' death threats against Nationwide ad comedy duo to be investigated by police.

Julie Walters on dinnerladies

'Victoria Wood knew I loved playing old women so she wrote them for me'.

John Lloyd and Dirk Maggs interview

John Lloyd and Dirk Maggs reveal how Douglas Adams made Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

John Kearns: Don't Worry They're Here review

Cherry picking elements of slapstick, surrealism and philosophy, this genuinely unique, massively entertaining hybrid was refreshingly difficult to pigeonhole.

Review: Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em

Raymond Allen's TV sitcom arrives on stage as Guy Unsworth revisits Frank Spencer.

Darren Connell on his stand-up roots

Scot Squad star Darren Connell says he is a stand-up comedian first - despite his acting and TV success.

Rarely Asked Questions - Ashley Storrie

You may know Glasgow rising star Ashley Storrie from her viral clips, such as the inspired one where she imagined what The Handmaid's Tale would be like if it was Scottish.

What I'm looking for from the new series of Still Game

While rightly eager for the return of Still Game to our television screens, there are aspects of the show which could be improved to get it back to its best.

My Comedy Hero: Hardeep Singh Kohli on Victoria Wood

As he takes his tour across the UK, the man behind sitcom Meet the Magoons and one-man show The Nearly Naked Chef picks the late funnywoman as his comic idol.

A new series of H2G2 begins... please don't screw it up

Hitchhiker's celebrates its 40th birthday this week, and to mark the occasion Radio 4 is broadcasting the first of a new series. You'd think, given everything I've written so far, that I'd be excited about this. And I want to be - I really do. And yet.

Lee Mack interview

"Everyone told me British sitcom was dead". The writer and star also opens up about the time he almost walked away from the BBC comedy - and why he writes in a shed.

Tom Walker (Jonathan Pie) interview

By any metric, 2016 was an extraordinary year, not least for Tom Walker whose comic creation, Jonathan Pie, surfed into the satirical landscape on a wave of deceptively insightful diatribes about austerity, Brexit and Trump.

Comedy thriller finds Tori Hart playing host to hitman

A wounded contract killer holds two strangers hostage in Fizz and Ginger Films' low-budget British comedy thriller Two Down.

Still Game, series 8 episode 1 review

In the golden age of the sitcom, some shows were recorded in front of a studio audience and the others had canned laughter superimposed. The former now costs too much and the latter, in which producers decided where the laughs are placed in post-production, has long been thought too tacky. But there is a third way. When Still Game (BBC One) was recording its seventh series two years ago, an audience attended a screening and supplied the laughter track.