Tim Key

The Tim Key three minute interview

Following two sold-out London runs, a sold-out award-nominated trip to the Melbourne Comedy Festival, and a third London stint in the West End

The Dog Thrower misfired on almost every level. Continuing its policy of recruiting big-name actors to its small-scale dramas, the programme cast former Friends star Matthew Perry as the eponymous canine trainer/tormentor.

We first meet Perry in the park launching and catching his pet spaniel. At first, the spectacle attracts a curious and appreciative crowd, and even an imitator in the form of Tim Key and his mongrel. But an unscrupulous local journalist twists the story, turning their fame to infamy, and the pair of dog throwers quickly become social pariahs.

So full marks to writer and director Jon Ronson for originality. However, the decision to pare the dialogue down to an almost silent movie-minimum rendered the narrative incomprehensible, the humour clouded and the characters' motivations baffling. It was a gimmick that backfired disastrously, and that certainly wasted Perry's considerable screen charisma and comedy skills.

But, on a more positive note, The Dog Thrower did go some way to make amends by ending upon a very funny, and totally unexpected, visual gag.

Penned by Jon Ronson, this opening episode of Playhouse Presents is a quirky silent comedy about, well, dog throwing. Tim Key puts his outsider comic skills to good use as Jonah, a dog walker who observes Matthew Perry's "Charismatic Man" tossing his hound into the air and receiving a rapturous response from a gathering crowd. Jonah, after the same adoration, starts doing the same with his canine Floppy, but things, inevitably, don't quite go to plan. Kimberley Nixon also stars.

Preview: The Dog Thrower, Sky Arts 1

The Dog Thrower is very funny. Of course it is. It's got Tim Key in it.

2014 Barry Award nominees announced

The nominations for this year's Barry Award at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival have been announced with a diverse mix of comedic styles making up the shortlist. The seven nominees are (alphabetical order) The Boy with Tape on His Face, Celia Pacquola, Denise Scott, John Kearns, Kraken by Trygve Wakenshaw, Kyle Kinane, Tim Key.

Tim Key: Single White Slut review

As a confident work celebrating the socially maladroit, Single White Slut is full of apparent contradictions, but the result is a joyous, adventurous experience that doesn't stint on the laughs.

Tim Key: living-room poetry jams to comedy ubiquity

Best known as Alan Partridge's Sidekick Simon, the self-proclaimed Single White Slut has found a keen audience for his weird, unsettling comedy.

Tim Key: Single White Slut, comedy review

This 75 minutes is punctuated with excellence, if not exactly riddled with it.

Tim Key, Single White Slut - review

The highest praise I can give it is that it's a more-than worthy successor to Masterslut and the award-winning Slutcracker.

Tim Key, Arcola Tent - comedy review

Like the recent work of Daniel Kitson, whom Tim Key collaborated with last autumn, this bold in-the-round show takes storytelling into unexpected places.