Chortle's most-read stories of 2020...

It goes without saying that 2020 has been an odd year for comedy… and everything else on the planet. But still there’s an appetite for news about this artwork, as the 3.9million unique users Chortle attracted over the year attests. Here are our top 10 most-read stories from the past 12 months:

10. BBC has another bite at What We Do In The Shadows

In April, BBC Two snapped up the rights to the second series of the US vampire houseshare sitcom - whose stars include Matt Berry, Natasia Demetriou and Kayvan Novak – for broadcast later in the spring. Read the full story

9. Alex Horne sets Taskmaster challenges for the nation The creator of the hit show – and Greg Davies's sidekick on air - helped fans through the first lockdown by setting a series of challenges for people to do at home... and they responded in their thousands. Here's our report about the first, set in March. Read the full story

8. Revealed: The celebrities learning comedy for Stand Up And Deliver Two things drove readers to this story last month: the controversy that celebs were getting on TV doing stand-up at a time when real stand-ups with decades of experience can't get work... and the fact that one of those taking part, Love Island’s Curtis Pritchard, bears an uncanny resemblance to Ed Gamble. Read the full story

7. Jack Whitehall’s Travels With My Father to return In February, we broke the news that the comedian and his dad Michael were to return to Netflix with a travelogue set in Australia, that would feature visits to an emu farm and a nudist beach - and involved the pair performing in drag together. Read the full story

6. Nish Kumar to front a satirical American TV show In April, The Mash Report frontman was signed up to host the topical comedy show Hello America for on-demand service Quibi, the big-budget start-up backed by former Disney chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg and concentrating on short-form content. However the service has now been wound up, with the lack of commuters who would have formed a key part of the audience, being partially to blame. Read the full story

5. Ousted from her own podcast! Disquiet in the online world in September as comedian Poppy Hillstead complained about being unceremoniously dumped from the hit podcast Gossipmongers, which she had set up with stand-ups Joe Wilkinson and David Earl. Read the full story

4. Review of the Emily Atack show ITV gave the Inbetweeners and I'm A Celebrity star her own show in November... and it didn't go well. Despite her obvious likability, her lack of stand-up chops were brutally exposed by this format. Read the full story

3.. ITV to pay tribute to Billy Connolly The comic was interviewed with wife Pamela Stephenson at their home in the Florida Keys for the programme - which just happens to air on ITV at 9.30pm tonight. We, briefly, reported the news last month. Read the full story

2. Comedy Central pulls cartoon that predicted Kobe Bryant dying in a plane crash A 2016 episode of an animated comedy called Legends Of Chamberlain Heights showed the NBA legend trying to crawl out a downed, burning aircraft. Comedy Central pulled the episode from its on-demand service, and the basketball star's family asked fans not to share the clip, after his death in a helicopter accident in January. Read the full story

1. Who’s in Taskmaster series 11? The revelation of each season's new competitors is always a major event for comedy fans... and the news of who was to take park in the forthcoming 11th season, which came just 11 days ago, was Chortle's most-read story of the year. Read the full story

Published: 28 Dec 2020