Smith hosts Montreal festival tribute

Arthur Smith is to host an eight-part radio series celebrating 21 years of Montreal's Just For Laughs comedy festival.

The show, featuring exclusive material from the festival archives, will air on Radio 2 at 1pm on Saturdays from this weekend.

Stars featured in the special include Eric Idle, Bill Hicks, Lily Tomlin, Caroline Aherne, Milton Berle, David Hyde Pierce, Jack Dee, Emo Philips, Graham Chapman, Michael Richards, John Candy, Greg Proops, Jo Brand, Al Murray and Harry Hill.

It will also feature face-to-face interviews recorded in Montreal this year with the likes of Rich Hall, Jimmy Carr and Carl Reiner

As well as the radio series, Smith was at the festival for his live show Arthur Smith Sings Leonard Cohen and his late-night tour of the city, complete with wood nymphs, an opera singer, assorted spoof historians (played by comedians such as Emo Philips) and a man in a gorilla suit.

Just For Laughs is the world's largest purely-comedy festival, and takes place each July. This year, it attracted more than 1.7 million festival-goers, 1,900 shows and 1,000 performers.

Published: 10 Sep 2003