Tim Vine interview

Just before he sets off on his Joke-amotive tour we caught up with Tim Vine to discuss Countdown, darts and the only thing that could derail his comedy choo-choo...

Northern naughty-texter Manford stretches the definition of "rocks" with a musical line-up of crooner James Blunt and drab Iberian ballad prince Enrique Iglesias. Luckily the comedy is much stronger. Russell Kane, Lee Nelson, Pete Firman and Susan Calman join the mighty punster Tim Vine, author of such efficient rib-ticklers as "Velcro: what a rip-off".

Carpool is a distinctly low-frills, ingeniously penny-pinching chat show, with its cut-price opening credits and host Robert Llewellyn picking up guests in his car and interviewing as he drives them around. This week, it's the turn of Tim Vine, king of the twitter gag, whose puns Llewellyn finds amusing to an alarming degree, and comedian Doon Mackichan, whose latest show draws for its entertainment on the subject matter of recent family events including her father's death, her divorce, and the grave illness of her young son.

The art of the one-liner

Readers have been inspired by an interview with comedians Tim Vine and Milton Jones to send in their own (and others) quick-fire wit.

Tim Vine: Master of the mini-joke

Tim Vine is famed for his one-liners. Can he teach Brian Logan the art of the fast gag?

Not Going Out series 4 episode 1 review

Lee Mack and Tim Vine return in the first episode of Not Going Out since its reprieve from the axe. And the show is on very, very good form...

Last year it looked like curtains for Lee Mack and Tim Vine's brightly lit one-liner-thon. But lo, it's back - and a jolly good thing too, for this flatmates sitcom is a cheesy guilty pleasure. In this opener, staid old Tim goes clubbing, which of course leads to disaster - he returns to Lee's wearing the wrong coat, which happens to be full of drugs.

As team captain on Would I Lie To You?, as well his mega stand-up career and numerous other TV appearances, Lee Mack must have a bottomless well of gags in his back yard - and those jokes just keep on coming.

Now with a Rose D'Or and a Royal Television Award under its scruffy belt, his happy-go-lucky sitcom returns for series four and a six-week run.

In tonight's episode the scruffy belt in question belongs to an oversized trench coat that Lee's best mate Tim (Tim Vine) has mistakenly picked up from a ­nightclub cloakroom.

"You look like two dwarves with one cinema ticket," Lee tells Tim. ­Unfortunately, the coat isn't his, and neither is the large plastic bag full of cocaine that Tim finds stashed in the pocket.

How to return the drugs to their rightful owner before he comes looking for them is another unlikely problem for the hapless pair - as well as for Tim's ditzy girfriend Daisy (Katy Wix).

It's also the set-up for more of the kind of class A one-liners that make this half hour absolutely whizz past each week.