This week the series which raids the comedy archives of ITV brings us Comedy Classics: Rising Damp.

The popular sitcom first hit our screens in 1974 and told the story of a stingy landlord and his dingy boarding house.

Celebrities including Bill Roache, Lesley Joseph, Ian Wright, June Sarpong and Antony Cotton reminisce about the programme and its main characters including landlord Rigsby, played by Leonard Rossiter, Smith, played by Don Warrington and Miss Jones, played by Frances de la Tour. Read more & comment »

Comedian and TV star, Ricky gervais has revealed that he hates being famous and would like to be able to turn it off.

In an interview with The Telegraph, the comedian explained:

“The worst thing about this job for me is the fame,” he said. “I’ve never understood why anyone wants people to know who they are. That’s the thing I wish I could turn off.” Read more & comment »

X Factor presenter Dermot O’Leary has been hired as a team captain on the BBC Two music quiz ‘Never Mind The Buzzcocks.’

Dermot won’t be a permanent captain however, but will be one of the guest fill ins replacing Bill Bailey who has quit the show after 11 series.

Other captains will include Mark Ronson, Frank Skinner, Jack Dee, Johnny Vegas and Bob Mortimer.

Ricky Gervais’s stand-up show tackles the weird world of fame, blurring the line between the acceptable and the outrageous, with a balancing act that had audiences across the country in stitches in what was the fastest-selling live comedy tour in UK history. Read more & comment »

Lindsay Lohan has revealed that she will miss working on the set of Ugly Betty as filming for her guest appearance on the show draws to an end.

“It’s been such a delight to be a part of this show,” she wrote on MySpace. “Two days left of my shoot on Ugly Betty - I am quite sad to have to leave the wonderful cast and crew behind. It’s always sad to leave people that you get close to.”

Lohan plays a mean former classmate of Betty (America Ferrera) on the show.

From the creator of Gimme Gimme Gimme and the producer of Absolutely Fabulous comes Beautiful People, a six-part comedy series for BBC Two exploring what it’s truly like for all of us to be fabulous via starry ambition, youthful optimism and one very loving, yet very dysfunctional, family.

Beautiful People is written by Jonathan Harvey (Gimme Gimme Gimme, Beautiful Thing) and based on the best-selling wild childhood memoirs of Simon Doonan, Creative Director of Barneys, New York.

This glittering and hilarious series delves inside Simon’s youthful memories and his desire to escape suburban Reading and live amongst the ‘beautiful people’ - from his perspective as a window dresser in a New York department store.
Read more & comment »

Fonejacker, the multi award-winning comedy, is back starting Wednesday 17th September at 10pm. Performer Kayvan Novak creates more prank-call havoc and confusion with his amazing array of comedy characters.

Fonejacker is a man addicted to prank calling who takes on various guises to satisfy his need to scam and confuse anyone on the other end of the phone. His identity is protected by a unique disguise ? a red bobble hat.?

Returning favourites include George the African Scamster, Terry Tibbs the dodgy dealer, salesman Irish Mike and the abbreviation-talking ‘Mr Doovde’, alongside a host of new characters.

Here is a short introduction to two of the new characters that pop up during the series. Read more & comment »

Last week, Lisa wrote about Katy Brand’s new series of her Big Ass Show on ITV2. This week, I got a chance to watch an episode.

Having seen a few episodes of her first series, I was surprised to see she’s still running with the unfunny sketches featuring ‘Normal’ Kate Winslet and that thick Army woman.

The digs against Kate Winslet are hard to understand, for a couple of reasons:

Read more & comment »

Michael Lurie who plays camp Marc St James in hit US comedy, Ugly Betty, was only meant to star in the shows pilot and should have been dropped after his first epsiode.

Michael said: “The original idea was for Wilhelmina to fire her assistant every week and hire a new one.

“I only had a few scenes in the pilot but I decided to do as much as I could with the part and Vanessa Williams, who plays Wilhelmina, was a major support from the beginning,” he told Manchester Evening News. Read more & comment »

Matt Lucas and David Walliams’ multi-award-winning comic creation, Little Britain, is returning to BBC One this autumn with a brand new series, Little Britain USA.

Filmed entirely in the States, the series features familiar Little Britain characters in new sketches, as well as brand-new characters, all performed by Lucas and Walliams.

Returning favourites include Dafydd Thomas, the self-proclaimed “only gay in the village”; Emily Howard, an awkward and obvious transvestite in denial; Lou and his seemingly wheelchair-bound best friend Andy; Marjorie Dawes, the insensitive leader of a chapter of the weight-loss support group Fatfighters; Vicky Pollard, a motor-mouthed teenage delinquent with a terrible attitude and Harvey, a young adult who still craves his mother’s “bitty”. Read more & comment »