New comics face Robinson

Nine up-and-coming comics have recorded a special edition of The Weakest Link.

Paul Kerensa, Susan Murray, Matt Blaize, John Ryan, Des Clarke, Andy White, Lorraine Benlos, Joe Heenan and Karen Cockfield all traded insults with host Anne Robinson during the show.

The programme, recorded today, will be broadcast on BBC1 during the World Cup.

Robinson taunted the contestants, who she called "the Bob Monkhouses of tomorrow", daring them to try to make her laugh. She asked Benlos: "What makes you funny - apart from the way you look?"

But the comics gave as good as they got.

When quizzed about where he had played, Blazie joked: "You won't have seen me - I haven't done any OAP gigs."

But he later relented. "You're really quite attractive, Anne. In a Mr Burns from The Simpsons kind of way."

And Cockfield - who diffused Robinson's jibes about her surname by saying "It does give people a cheap laugh" - referred to her previous role fronting Watchdog, saying: "Round our way, that makes you a bleeding grass."

But Robinson - who at one point told the panel "Gosh, you're dim" - won several clashes.

When Heenan was asked how much he earned for a gig, he said: "Not as much as you, Anne", the host fired back with: "No one gets paid as much as I do."

And she dismissed White's routine about men struggling with flat-pack furniture as: "That's not the comedy of observation. That's the comedy of the blindingly obvious."

However, one of the biggest laughs came after Clarke said he hosted the breakfast show on Glasgow's Beat 106 "from six till nine", and Robinson stupidly asked: "Is that in the morning or at night?"

To see how many of the insults survive, and who won the £9,000+ jackpot, check the BBC1 schedules in June.

Published: 7 May 2002