This week's comedy trivia

• Arthur Smith’s first choice of stage name when registering with actors’ union Equity was ‘Captain Wanker’.

• Simon Pegg flashed at his entire family after showing his parents and siblings a home video, complete with full-frontal scene. He says: ‘I forgot there was a point where I flashed. I only realised about one second before it happened and couldn't get to the remote in time to stop them all from seeing me pull down my trousers and reveal myself. My sister screamed and my mum said, “Ooh, that's changed.”’

• Prince Charles took Camilla to see Spamalot on Valentine’s Night. Apparently they loved it.

• American comic Bobcat Goldthwait gave up drink and drugs as a teenager after he was arrested for hitchhiking in the snow with no trousers on. He recalls: ‘This car pulled over. In Boston, the taxi cabs look almost the same as police cars. So I thought, “Great - a ride.” I actually did think it was a cab.” He then tried to strike up a conversation with the driver, who the fucked-up Goldthwait thought looked like ‘a lava lamp with a hat’.

• Sean Hughes thinks his reputation as a womaniser is underserved. ‘One Edinburgh festival I fucked four women and they formed a relay team, telling the whole country,’ he moans.

• When Russell Brand has had his cat Morrissey neutered he asked the vet if he could to keep the lopped-off testicles as a souvenir.

• Sally Phillips was once unknowingly rented out for dances with Philippine villagers. Only when she and her travelling companion Jemima had danced with every male in the remote settlement - and seen the person who’d encouraged them counting a pile of cash - did they realise they’d been set up.

• Stand-up Paul Sinha says the thing he’s most proud of is not his if.comeddie nomination, but appearing on a Sky quiz show called Intellect in 1990 and correctly naming Guatamala as the country whose national symbol and currency was the quetzal.

• Jo Brand is 18 months late with her new novel... because she keeps getting distracted. ‘The book is about Morrissey fans and I've only managed one chapter,’ she said. ‘It's hard to write sometimes.’

• Sarah Silverman: ‘Being a comedian is like being gay: You're just born that way, and it's beyond your control.’

SOURCES: Arthur Smith’s stage tour, WENN, Popbitch, Independent On Sunday, Sean Hughes’s stage show, Holy Moly, Sunday Times, Leicester Comedy Festival programme, Daily Record, Chicago Herald

Published: 16 Feb 2007