Elvis Costello

  • Singer

Press clippings

Alan Carr to host The Royal Variety Performance 2021

Alan Carr is to host The Royal Variety Performance 2021, with comedians Judi Love, Bill Bailey, Chris McCausland and Josh Widdicombe set to perform as part of the show.

British Comedy Guide, 21st October 2021

Now here comes autumn, with Another Case of Milton Jones on Thursdays to prove again that Radio 4 can make you stony-faced quicker than botox. Milton Jones is described in the Radio Times as 'the Perrier Award-winning king of the one-liners'. Maybe the Perrier judges that year were all aged 11.

Jones's jokes are of the variety that might appeal to little Chesney on Coronation Street, the red-haired child whose japes include putting soot on the eye pieces of binoculars.

Most of Jones's revolve around word confusion ('under budget' turns into 'under Budgens' which, in a sketch about architecture, leads to a project ending up beneath a grocery shop), or word association - for example, 'Brazil' leads to 'nut' and 'nut' leads to 'madness'. If by this time you'll accept an eighth of a laugh, or even a sixteenth, Milton (and his adroit tape editor) eventually came up with the goods in a sketch about running a sweet shop for the stars, in which George Michael asked for a Wispa, Chuck Berry a Rolo, Whitney Houston for a Yorkie and Elvis Costello said it was a good year for the Roses.

Gillian Reynolds, The Telegraph, 20th September 2005

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