Funny Women comedy shorts award shortlist revealed

The standard of entries across this year's Comedy Shorts Award has been so high that we had a real tussle in the Judges room but we are delighted with our Top 10 shortlist!

Standard Issue at the Fringe: part two

As the Edinburgh Fringe dives into its first week proper, we thought there was no better time to offer up part two of our round-up of Standard Issue contributors who are up there, doing their talented thing.

Showstopper! and Mark Gatiss win Olivier Awards

Showstopper! The Improvised Musical has won the Best Entertainment and Family Show at the Olivier Awards tonight. Mark Gatiss won Best Actor in a Supporting Role.

Over on Radio 4, I've been ignoring Trodd en Bratt say "Well Done You" for almost two series now, mostly because it's called Well Done You, and that phrase, along with others such as "Aw, bless" and "x more sleeps til..." and "nom" (for food), makes me want to throw crockery at the wall. However, I've realised that Lucy and Ruth, the women behind WDY, are perfectly aware of how irritating WDY is (as though they wouldn't be), and I've realised that this, too, is a properly funny comedy programme. It's a sketch show, which means it's hit-and-miss, but that's the nature of it. A skit involving two women comparing how little they'd spent on stuff had some great lines, but suffered from the characters sounding too much like Catherine Tate (Tate casts a long shadow over female character comics). But other sketches, such as the really loud New York tourists, made me laugh - just at their silliness, really - while the women working in a shop where every product had to have a double function were original and very funny. So, you know, Ruth Bratt and Lucy Trodd, well done you!

Trodd en Bratt land Radio 4 series

Ruth Bratt and Lucy Trodd have landed a Radio 4 series based on their 2012 Edinburgh Free Festival show.

Ruth Bratt and Lucy Trodd interview

You've been warned! A female double act will be hitting the Free Fringe with a debut character sketch show that will have the entire audience saying 'Well Done You'.

One always needs a dose of originality after a large helping of nostalgia and that was certainly provided by Showstopper, a new comedy show during which a cast improvises a musical using suggestions from the studio audience. Curtain up on the first offering, and Dylan Emery was asking the ensemble for an opening number for a musical called The God Sister set in mafia gangland. Not surprisingly, the plot was nonsensical at times, or as Emery put it, "contextually unlikely", but on the whole the performers - including Pippa Evans, Ruth Bratt, Lucy Trodd, Sean McCann and Oliver Senton - produced one of the most entertaining half hour's radio I've heard in a long time.