Comedy gold: Dylan Moran's Monster

One of the finest phrasemakers in comedy smuggles out the less bigoted frustrations of middle England beneath a cloak of rumpled Irish charm.

Dylan Moran performs stand-up in Russia

Dylan Moran, best known for his role as the Irish alcoholic Bernard Black in the U.K. series Black Books, became the first native English-speaking comedian to perform stand-up in Russia last week.

Being modern: Arena comedy

Lee Evans, Steve Coogan, Dylan Moran, Eddie Izzard, Peter Kay, Russell Brand, Tim Vine, Michael McIntyre... the very best of our home-grown talent has since filled the O2 Arena, the very biggest of our coliseums - and McIntyre has made playing to these rooms an expected practice rather than a remarkable event thanks to his televised "roadshows". Fewer than 100,000 arena-comedy tickets were sold in 2004; within five years, that figure had breached a million.

Top 20 stand-up comedy DVDs for Christmas

Peter Kay, Dylan Moran or last year's Edinburgh stand-up winner Russell Kane? Our critics select the best comedy of the year in time for Christmas.

Video: Dylan Moran encounters life's banalities

Dylan Moran's latest show has been critically praised this year, for its "heartfelt yet consummately crafted stand-up" (The Times).

'Black Books': Tube talk gold

Two weeks back, Tube Talk Gold fondly remembered Channel 4's Father Ted - the first big television hit for writer Graham Linehan. But Linehan's contribution to great British comedy didn't end there - in 2000, he teamed with stand-up comic Dylan Moran to unleash another brilliant comic creation...

I can remember the great Irish stand-up comic Dylan Moran once saying that whenever you are having a discussion with a German, all that you are thinking about when they talk is: "Yeah, yeah, Hitler, Hitler, Hitler, Hitler, Hitler..."

In the same way, I suspect that many people watch Jack Dee's Lead Balloon while for most of the time they are thinking: "Yeah, yeah, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Curb, Curb, Curb Your Enthusiasm," and perhaps throwing in the occasional, "Larry David" for a bit of variety.

I myself have never been the biggest Lead Balloon fan, but it was funny in parts. One subplot of the opening episode was of failed stand-up Rick Spleen (Dee) trying to write a book, a scenario which did make me chuckle when Dee asked if, "They sell books in Lidl?"

The actual main plot was Spleen preparing, or rather hijacking, a Sunday Times interview featuring his wife, and trying to make himself more interesting by getting a pet pig. The main scene near the end featured Spleen trying to get the pig out from underneath a table which was amusing... at first... and then the pig shat on him.

Now I don't mind toilet humour, but I am of the view that excrement is a much funnier when it is talked about rather than appearing on screen. The scene was too disgustingly graphic to be funny for me.

Tousle-haired Irish comic Dylan Moran won the Perrier Award at the tender age of 24. He's now nearing 40 and back out on the road touring an acclaimed stand-up show. This is a compilation of highlights from his back catalogue of live DVDs: three typically hilarious shows in Dublin, Sydney and London spanning 2004 to 2009. It captures Moran's funniest rants about ageing, religion, relationships and the little absurdities of life, all delivered with his unique shambolic charm.

5 things you might not know about... Dylan Moran

Some things you might not know about the Irish stand-up comedian and Black Books star Dylan Moran.

An interview with Rob Rouse

Rob Rouse is a comedian who, along with Dylan Moran, Lee Mack, Phil Kay, and many others, has won the annual So You Think You're Funny award - which was the just the beginning of a similarly acclaimed career.