Weekly Newsletter |
Monday 22nd February 2021 |
It's been a productive seven days for online comedy creators. We've collected up 15 of the best new sketches at the bottom of this newsletter.
Latest comedy news
Bananaman to return in new cartoon series
Disney's Fox Entertainment has announced it is developing a new Bananaman TV cartoon and is seeking UK writers to helm the project.
Katherine Parkinson creates BBC Four comedy drama Sitting
Katherine Parkinson has written and stars in Sitting, a new one-off comedy drama for BBC Four about three people who are sitting for a painter.
Phoebe Waller-Bridge becomes Edinburgh Fringe Society president
Fleabag star Phoebe Waller-Bridge has been named as the new president of the society that runs Edinburgh's fringe festival.
Nish Kumar to release stand-up albums
Nish Kumar is releasing two stand-up albums. It's In Your Nature To Destroy Yourselves Part One and Part Two will be available as audio specials on March 19th.
Staged script book set to be published
A book featuring the scripts of Staged, the comedy series starring David Tennant and Michael Sheen, is set to be published.
CelebAbility returning for Series 5
CelebAbility is returning for a fifth series. Production resumes shortly on the ITV2 comedy game show hosted by Iain Stirling.
Helena Bonham Carter amongst cast joining Greg Davies in The Cleaner
The cast has been revealed for The Cleaner, the new BBC One sitcom starring Greg Davies. Helena Bonham Carter, David Mitchell and Stephanie Cole are amongst those set to appear.
Comedies nominated in Broadcasting Press Guild Awards
Friday Night Dinner, Inside No. 9, Staged, This Country and The Trip are up for Best Comedy in the 2021 Broadcasting Press Guild Awards.
Alan Carr is working on a sitcom about his childhood
Alan Carr is making a semi-autobiographical sitcom about his life growing up in Northampton in the 1980s.
Features
Comedy Chronicles: Margaret Thatcher: sitcom star
The politics of the 1980s fuelled the alternative comedy scene, making stars for decades to come. But have you heard the one about the Prime Minister saving a sitcom great from an unjustly early demise?
A taste of Toast Of Tinseltown
Director Michael Cumming on the return of Steven Toast - plus Sandylands updates, and Toast fan Stewart Lee chips in, too.
Eleanor Tiernan on recording from home in a pandemic
We talked to Eleanor Tiernan, ahead of her stand-up special on Radio 4 on Sunday (it's now available on BBC Sounds and the BBC comedy podcast). "Being in the closet is great preparation for a pandemic" she notes.
First Gig, Worst Gig: Alasdair Beckett-King
Stand-up and sit-down expert Alasdair Beckett-King once saw a ghost in the audience. But the bloke from Sainsbury's was worse.
Helen Rutter & Rob Rouse on sharing the comedy in their marriage
Playwright and actor Helen Rutter and comedian Rob Rouse appear to have found a way to work together without completely ruining their relationship. They chat to us, as Rutter's new children's book The Boy Who Made Everyone Laugh is released.
Kapow! Batman and Bane go West in Matthew Highton's latest masterwork
Mashing up classic Batmen and remaking great TV intros, Matthew Highton is the random re-edit king.
British Comedy Quiz #141
If you can get all fifteen points available this week, we'll be super-impressed!
Random 8: Garrett Millerick
He's just launched the Laughable podcast, but which marquee personality can Garrett Millerick not stop musing over?
BCG Pro
The BCG Pro opportunity in which you can submit a programme idea to top producers Baby Cow closes soon. Meanwhile if you're writing for Newsjack then you might be interested to read about the 'SOUP RECIPE' concept for generating sketch ideas.
Podcasts
Richard Herring's topical ventriloquism show has hit episode 30, meanwhile Nish Kumar is on RHLSTP. Rufus & Howard's storytelling show continues, and Russell Kane is on ComComPod.
TV listings
Would I Lie To You?
Maya Jama, Roisin Conaty, Roman Kemp and Xand van Tulleken compete on the comedy panel show tonight.
The Stand Up Sketch Show
Kojo Anim, Tessa Coates, Luke McQueen, Seann Walsh, Dane Baptiste, Janine Harouni, Larry Dean and Tom Parry's routines are reconstructed as sketches.
Mel Giedroyc: Unforgivable
Mel Giedroyc and Lou Sanders are joined by Tom Allen, Gemma Collins and Darren Harriott for the fourth episode of this new chat show that sees the stars confessing to bad behaviour.
Hypothetical
Richard Ayoade, Roisin Conaty, Evelyn Mok and Ivo Graham are the guests tasked with thinking up improvised answers to various fictional scenarios.
Stand Up And Deliver
Richard Coles, Shaun Ryder, Sayeeda Warsi, Curtis Pritchard and Katie McGlynn try stand-up for the first time, coached by David Baddiel, Zoe Lyons, Jason Manford, Nick Helm and Judi Love.
Dating No Filter
The latest TV dating show format... but one which involves some comedy. A bit like Gogglebox, comedians watch on as singletons go on first dates, commenting on what they see.
Back
In the final episode of the second series, Stephen and Alison try to track down Andrew's birth mother, but have they crossed a line?
The Last Leg
Judi Love and Harry Hill are set to join the regulars live on air on the topical comedy show this Friday.
The Graham Norton Show
This Friday's show will be full of actors, with Orlando Bloom, Kate Winslet, Stanley Tucci and Kingsley Ben-Adir all set to appear. Silk City, featuring Ellie Goulding, will perform New Love.
The Ranganation
Another episode of the topical comedy show in which Romesh Ranganathan and a panel from around the UK debate what is going on in the world.
Dylan Moran: Off The Hook
This broadcast of Dylan Moran's 2015 stand-up show marks the start of the BBC's Festival Of Funny - a whole bunch of programming aimed to cheer the nation up.
Looking at this week's radio offerings: Just A Minute returns to Radio 4 at 6:30pm today for the first series since the death of Nicholas Parsons. The episodes will be chaired by guest hosts - first up: Paul Merton. Also look out for Stand Up In My House (BBC Radio Wales, today, 6:30pm), Henry Normal (Tuesday, 6:30pm), Newsjack (Thursday, 10:30pm), The Now Show (Friday, 6:30pm) and Anna Morris: Kid-Life Crisis (Sunday, 7:15pm). For a complete list of TV and radio broadcasts, including repeats, see our full schedule.
Shop
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It's In The AirIt's In The Air (1939) finds everyone's favourite fool, George Formby, fulfilling his dream of joining the RAF - though, of course, he does it the hard way! The pre-war Ealing comedy co-stars Polly Ward, Jack Hobbs, Garry Marsh and Hal Gordon, and has now been restored and remastered in HD for the first time. Hapless George's dreams of flying are continually thwarted, and when he's even rejected for a job as an air raid warden he sneakily tries on his brother-in-law's RAF despatch rider uniform. Finding an urgent communiqué in its pockets he decides to deliver it himself... and ends up with his head in the clouds - though not in the way he'd expected! |
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A Bit Of Fry & Laurie - The BBC TV SoundtracksIn this classic TV soundtrack, Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie explore a seemingly inexhaustible list of subjects with a delicious turn of phrase and elaborate wordplay. The hilarity includes regular acts such as not so super Spy Tony Mercheson and his boss Control, yuppies, John and Peter and the Critics. With four brilliant series of great satire, comic genius and hilarious use of language, the show cemented Fry & Laurie as a double act and paved the way for their future stardom. A Bit Of Fry & Laurie originally broadcast on BBC 1 and BBC 2 between 1987 and 1995. |
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Shush! - The Complete Series 1 And 2The complete first and second series of the award-winning sitcom written by and starring Morwenna Banks (Absolutely) and Rebecca Front (The Thick Of It) set in, yes, a library - but no ordinary library. This is the library overseen and run by the most unlikely pairing since Mills met Boon. Meet Alice (Front) - a former child prodigy who won a place at Oxford aged nine, but because Daddy went too she never needed to have any friends. She's scared of everything - everything that is, except libraries and Snoo (Banks), a slightly confused individual, with a have-a-go attitude to life, marriage, haircuts and reality. Snoo loves books and fully intends to read one someday. And forever popping into the library is Dr Cadogan (Michael Fenton Stevens), celebrity doctor to the stars and a man with his finger in every pie. Their happy life is interrupted by the arrival of Simon Nielson (Ben Willbond), a man with a mission: a mission to close down inefficient libraries. |
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The Complete Uncle Mort Adventures - North Country, South Country & Celtic FringeFor the first time ever all three much-loved series featuring the legendary creations Uncle Mort and Carter Brandon are brought together in one collection. As the pair tour Britain, Uncle Mort's recollections make for some hilarious moments. Uncle Mort and his Yorkshire-based family first appeared in Peter Tinniswood's novel A Touch Of Daniel, which earned them a run of four series of I Didn't Know You Cared on BBC TV from 1975-1979. The three subsequent radio series are Uncle Mort's North Country (1987), Uncle Mort's South Country (1990), and Uncle Mort's Celtic Fringe (1996). Stephen Thorne, Peter Skellern and Sam Kelly star. |
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Katy Wix - DelicacyFrom award-winning comedian and writer Katy Wix comes Delicacy - a different kind of memoir from an "astonishing new voice". Eleven snapshots of a life - some staccato, raw and shocking, some expansive, meditative, and profound, underpinned with moments of startling humour that shatter the darkness - all beginning with a single memory. A memory of cake. The sickly royal icing marked the moment Katy found her voice. The madeira cake was the sun her group therapy sessions orbited. The 'missing cake' from a lost holiday has never let go. The Bara brith eaten in hospital after a life-altering car crash was as tough as the metal that hit her. The supermarket rock cake was where she 'practised wanting'. "Shocking, raw, darkly funny and deeply humane", Katy Wix's exploration of trauma, grief, addiction, love, loss, memory and hope is "truly unforgettable". |
For more, see our full list of new releases and items coming soon.
Comedy videos
Wicked Friday Night - BCG Pro Video Contest winner
Here's the latest winner of our video contest. Created by Mark Jackson, it focuses on how staying at home can still lead to an epic night out.
Bridgerton Audition
Rege-Jean Page's never-before-seen Bridgerton audition. A sketch by Toussaint Douglass.
Brett Domino - The Pub
Brett Domino sings about wanting to go to the pub.
Sitcom PMs Questions
Impressionist Clive Greenwood imagines a Prime Minister's Questions in which sitcoms are on the agenda.
Love Possibly
Amazon customers can now watch this film, which has won multiple film festival awards, for free on the Prime Video platform. It's worth seeking out! It follows a timid character called Alex (played by Steve Hodgetts) who is trying to make a mail-order bride love him.
New Zoom filter - The Pin
The latest sketch from sketch duo The Pin, showing off Zoom's latest filter - a sound-based one.
What's in my Handbag spoof with Fleur De Lish
Influencer Fleur De Lish opens up her handbag to the viewing public. Susan Harrison spoofs all those 'what's in my bag' type videos.
Sorry I don't work here
Jazz Emu says of his latest song: "So awkward when this happens!"
Right-wing YouTubers
Sketch duo Giants spoof right-wing YouTubers.
Every Episode of Popular Space Show
The latest sketch from our First Gig, Worst Gig interview subject Alasdair Beckett-King. It doesn't mention Star Trek once.
Dirty Gaming
A Dirty Dancing inspired sketch about a man teaching his girlfriend to play PlayStation in a pandemic.
The Wokest Link
Phil Chapman takes part in The Wokest Link.
Mother F**king Pep Talk - Tolu Ogunmefun
Sometimes the only thing in your way is YOU. Tolu Ogunmefun wants to let you know that its ok tell those doubting critical voices in your head to F**K OFF.
Dominic Frisby: Oh Bollocks!
In times of strife and drama when troubles come to men. The English we have just one word when things go wrong...
LockClown
An ode to all the creatives who have suffered as a result the covid-19 pandemic.
Spotlight
Watch Your Stern
Producer/director team Peter Rogers and Gerald Thomas are best known for making the 31 iconic Carry On films from 1958. Releasing two in many years during the 1960s and 70s, you'd be forgiven for thinking that they didn't have much time for anything else, but such was their no-nonsense attitude to production that they continued pumping out non-Carry On titles throughout the period, including this 1960 gem, Watch Your Stern. Starring Kenneth Connor, Eric Barker, Leslie Phillips and Joan Sims, with a guest role for Sid James and cameos for Spike Milligan and Eric Sykes, it's not just brilliantly cast, but remains wonderfully funny, in the chuckle-packed, farcical tale of a group of naval men trying to keep their jobs after accidentally destroying a set of top-secret blueprints.
Thanks for reading
Hannah Sowerby has won the latest BCG Pro Gag-a-Week competition on the topic of "warming winter food":
I think hot, savoury liquid is soup-er... And that's just for starters.
If you haven't already, do please help us out by taking our survey on audience preferences. It'll help us with some research we're currently doing. Thank you!
British Comedy Guide
www.comedy.co.uk
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