Comedy Greats appear on Royal Mail stamps

Spike Milligan, The Two Ronnies, Billy Connolly, Morecambe & Wise, Norman Wisdom, Lenny Henry, Peter Cook & Dudley Moore, Monty Python, French & Saunders and Victoria Wood feature on ten special Royal Mail stamps.

Peter Cook: the most inspiring British comic ever

Peter Cook died 20 years ago today.

Remembering Peter Cook

The self-proclaimed 'funniest man in the world' died 20 years ago.

Peter Cook to be honoured by Torquay

A Torquay-born comedian who was a pioneer of British satire in the 1960s is to have a blue plaque dedicated to his memory in the town tomorrow.

Radio Times review

As part of its 50th birthday celebrations, BBC2 has tiptoed downstairs to the vaults, cleared the dust from the shelves and picked some little-seen and little-remembered comedy treasures from the past half-century.

It has an enviably rich archive to trawl, one full of familiar faces. There are surprises, too, including the unbroadcast pilot of QI. Early BBC2 stalwarts aren't forgotten: there are sketches from Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, and Spike Milligan, whose thoroughly surreal and bizarre Q series ran for well over ten years.

We also get to see an early Borat work-in-progress from Sacha Baron Cohen, as an Albanian called Christo.

The Establishment Club, comedy review

When this reprise of Peter Cook's 1960s satirical club debuted in 2012 it was an underwhelming affair. George Galloway and comedian Terry Alderton topped and tailed the bill that night. They do so again today, but luckily the parallels end there.

Who would be in your comedy dream team?

Which comedians who work best together? Mark Thomas with Doug Stanhope? Bill Bailey and Richard Ayoade? John Oliver alongside Peter Cook?

Peter Cook and Dudley Moore: The odd couple

A look back at the work of Pete and Dud.

Over on Channel 4, rather later after the watershed for reasons that became quickly obvious, London Irish (***) started another six-week residency. The sitcom, about four Northern Irish twentysomethings living in the UK capital, is created and written by Derryite Lisa McGee. The foursome are sister and brother Bronagh (Sinead Keenan) and Conor (Kerr Logan), who share a flat with Packy (Peter Campion) and Niamh (Kat Reagan). Packy is a slacker, Niamh is a nympho, and has a jailbird boyfriend who bores her but whom she keeps in contact with "for a ride", while Bronagh has range of fruity insults for her dim brother, including "dickswab" and "fucktard".

They are part of a generation mercifully untouched by terrorism, so instead of brooding about the stereotypes of politics, religion and history, they can get on with living up to the, er, stereotypes of drinking too much, having lots of sex and and swearing like navvies. I think there's a joke in there somewhere, but McGee doesn't upend the tired tropes to make them funny.

Last night's story concerned Packy bumping into Ryan (Ciaran Nolan) from back home, who lost his hand while covering a shift in a garage for him, when he was shot in a hold-up. Packy organises a charity quiz - "like an exam in a pub" - at the foursome's local to raise funds for Ryan's new robotic hand. Cue lots of rather weak jokes about not him being able to clap or going to a fancy-dress party as Captain Hook - Peter Cook and Dudley Moore's one-legged actor auditioning for Tarzan it was most definitely not.

The opener was a bit frantic and unfocused, and the actors are all a little too shouty - always a bad sign in a comedy - and, despite some smart lines and the welcome presence of Ardal O'Hanlon as Bronagh and Conor's Da back home, it will have to improve swiftly to gain a dedicated following.