Phill Jupitus is back in the picture for the Fringe

The larger-than-life TV comic is all geared up to reveal his recently honed skill at the festival in the capital which gets underway today.

Phill Jupitus' north east return

Phill Jupitus is back in the North East on Saturday night.

What a Load of Buzzcocks was a lazy cut-and-paste job, but as lazy cut-and-paste jobs go it was one of the better ones. The show looked back over the past 17 years through the skewed prism of comedy quiz show Never Mind the Buzzcocks, covering changes in pop, fashion and team captain Phill Jupitus' waistline.

Never Mind the Buzzcocks started in 1996, suggesting a chronological approach that would force everybody to wait a whole 11 episodes for the quiz show's most memorable moment, when Ordinary Boys' frontman Preston walked off stroppily, only to be replaced by a member of the studio audience.

Phill Jupitus - review

When you are comfortably established in comedy's club class, no one expects you to innovate. It is to Phill Jupitus's immense credit, then, that this touring show is genuinely experimental and unlike anything else on the circuit. What it isn't, alas, is successful.

Mark Thomas heads up Belarus Free Theatre benefit

Mark Thomas is bringing together a host of top names including Omid Djalili, Phill Jupitus, Isy Suttie and Imran Yusuf to the Comedy Store later this month to help raise funds for Belarus Free Theatre.

The News Quiz (Radio 4, 6.30pm) returns. I know there are people who will leap with joy at this news. Once I would have been among them. No longer. Even though producer Sam Bryant has brought back journalists (tonight Daniel Finkelstein of The Times) to pit wits against comedians Roisin Conaty, Phill Jupitus and Jeremy Hardy, the programme has grown so much coarser with the years that even Sandi Toksvig seems challenged when trying to enliven the murky script.

Five character comedians at the Glasgow Comedy Festival

Anna Morris, Al Murray, Phill Jupitus, John Shuttleworth and Bob Doolally among the GICF highlights.

Top 20 comedy shows in London - January

Featuring Sean Lock, Adam Riches, Rob Newman, Al Murray, Phill Jupitus, Baconface, Mark Thomas, the Improvathon and more...

The Buzzcocks producers atone slightly for BBC2's achingly silly decision to cancel Shooting Stars: Bob Mortimer is your host for the seasonal edition of this still-funny music quiz. You can expect... actually, I've no idea what you can expect from Mortimer, that's why he's such a good pick. Captains Phill Jupitus and Noel Fielding, are joined by drum 'n' bass producer DJ Fresh, Melanie C from the Spice Girls, Him & Her star Russell Tovey and comedian Joey Page.

The derivation of advertising jingles is just one of the 'quite interesting' facts relayed by jovial host Stephen Fry, today in Father Christmas costume for the QI festive special. Other topics include Twelfth Night - not necessarily on January 6, according to Alan Davies's calculations - and jesus lizards. It's an enjoyable episode, with fun comic diversions including a rant about 'shiny children' that Phill Jupitus cannily uses to deflect from Fry's rather awkward question to Sarah Millican on the subject of kids. Millican may be a popular stand-up, but she's given little chance to shine here, mostly laughing very loudly at the chaps' banter. Danny Baker, meanwhile, gets to show off his obscure knowledge. It's entertaining, but not as much as, say, the 2010 Christmas special, where guest Daniel Radcliffe was used to better effect.