The week's trivia round-up

• ‘I've gone a surprisingly long way on virtually no talent’ – Jimmy Carr.

• Ed Byrne has been accused of hypocrisy after agreeing to appear in a benefit gig aiming to get the Serious Fraud Office's corruption investigation into BAE Systems reopened. While he is a long-time supporter of good causes, especially Amnesty International, as a comic up for corporate hire he has previously been called upon to heap praise on the hated arms manufacturer. At the CorpComms Awards last year, he spoke of how BAE Systems had been highly commended for its media spin operation, and at the IR Magazine Awards this year he handed the company a gong for its ‘investor relations’. The gig is at the Hammersmith Apollo on the 23rd. Tickets.

• ‘The British have an opposition when you try to be at all intellectual with your comedy – there's a deep mistrust and suspicion of that. They say, “Just be funny, don't try to be clever.”’ - Steve Coogan

• Train-wreck American comic Andy Dick yesterday paid $126 after cops caught him taking a piss against a building in Columbus, Ohio, last week. He was in town to appear at the Funny Bone comedy club, where his set didn’t entirely go smoothly. The venue’s manager said Dick was drunk, made ‘inappropriate comments’, groped women in the toilets and urinated on the floor ‘and on at least one person’.

• Nicholas Lyndhurst protests that he isn’t as rich as you’d think off the back of such hits as Only Fools And Horses. ‘I haven't got a big house,’ he told an interviewer this week. ‘But it is made of platinum.’

• A gig was cancelled at Brighton’s Komedia last week after an appalling stench was discovered coming from somewhere near the dressing room. Turned out to be a problem with the sewers that was fixed in time for the late show.

• We’re going to start include a top 5 in this round-up each week of the top search terms that brought people to Chortle, so you can gauge who’s hot. This week: (1) Mark Watson, who’s on in the West End next week; (2) Brendon Burns, the if.com winner; (3) Matt Kirshen, recently knocked out of American TV’s Last Comic Standing; (4) Frankie Boyle from Mock The Week; (5) Andrew Maxwell, if.com nominee.

• Lenny Henry: ‘I started off in variety wearing big flares and frilly shirts and big bow ties like vampire bats around my neck and working with people like Keith Harris and Orville, so anything up from that is a change.’

• Stephen Merchant wound up Elton John when he picked up his GQ award for best comedian earlier in the week. When his name was called, the Extras star took He several excruciating minutes to join the singer behind the podium. He finished his dessert, knocked back a drink and took a stroll around the auditorium before finally going up on stage. He then explained: ‘I thought I would keep Elton John waiting for a change – as he did to my friend Ricky at the Diana concert.’

SOURCES: Irish Independent, Daily Telegraph, Independent On Sunday, Columbus Dispatch, Chortle, Google, London Evening Standard, Manchester Evening News, London Evening Standard

Published: 7 Sep 2007