The week's comedy trivia

• Michael McIntrye reveals his taste in music: ‘I like nothing more than cranking up Holding Out For A Hero by Bonnie Tyler and Dr Hook’s When You’re In Love With A Beautiful Woman, in my car.’

• Comic Bob Mills got a namecheck in the most bizarre place yesterday – the Jill Dando murder retrial. Although in a further knock to his ego, few people seemed to know who he was. A man seen walking away from the presenter’s house on the morning she was shot was described in court yesterday as looking like ‘the comedian - or television character - called Bob Mills’. But some jurors shook their heads when asked if they'd heard of Mills. Prosecutor Jonathan Laidlaw said: ‘He wasn't a very well-known figure like David Beckham.’ The judge allowed two photographs of Mills, left, to be shown to help them.

• Joan Rivers said that her appearance on Loose Women this week reminded her of her wedding night – because she was asked to leave in the middle of that, too.

• Father Ted co-creator Graham Linehan has a bee in his bonnet about artistic heavyweights who get too pretentious and serious about comedy – but not really understanding it. ‘It’s a way of appearing to value comedy while actually doing the complete opposite,’ he says in his blog, . He adds: ‘About 200 years ago, we received a South Bank Show award for Father Ted, which was presented to us by an aging and confused Barbara Cartland. I remember turning to see Melvyn Bragg chuckling behind his hand as she mispronounced the title of the show. It was all very amusing, but I present it here because it is a perfect metaphor for what I'm talking about, “'Here's your award but, ha, ha, fuck her and fuck you!”’

• Pity the poor stand-ups on the bill at a charity night at the Stand comedy club in Edinburgh this week – because the raffle got a better review than them. ‘It was a hoot, and roused the heartiest laughs of the evening,’ raved Barry Gordon in the Evening News of the ticket drawing.

• Steve Coogan is planning to sell his six-bedroom Victorian home in Hove, saying it's too big for him. he could be moving to rural Ireland instead.

• What would Valerie Singleton say? Former Blue Peter presenter Stuart Miles is putting on an Edinburgh comedy show almost entirely in women’s clothing. The presenter, latterly a Gaydar radio host, has created a number of female comedy characters… including Vera Singleton – the estranged sister of his Blue Peter predecessor who is convinced that she should have been on children’s TV herself.

• Chris Martin invited Ricky Gervais into his dressing room before Coldplay’s BBC gig this week. On his blog Gervais wrote: ‘I was worried they'd all be trying to focus and I'd mess with their karma. But no. It was like they were just hanging out on a Sunday morning with not much to do. Not nervous. No big deal. At one point Chris stubbed his toe, and, in pain, turned to me and said, "You'll have to go on instead." He is a very funny man. But a part of me... It would've been a very different gig.’

• The bug-plagued Edinburgh Fringe website managed to describe Stewart Lee’s stand-up show, completely inaccurately, as: ‘In a town where no-one dies, a frustrated obituary writer befriends a very old woman. A one-man comedy about death, love and the written words we will be remembered by.’ But, sportingly, Stew has promised to try to perform an extract that show, as described, each night.

• Highlight of the launch of the Snuffbox DVD launch this week – aside from the audience re-creation of the catchy Fuck, Shit... song (below) was surely Matt Berry taking a Two Pints Of Lager… DVD, stamping it to pieces, then putting it in a bucket and pissing on it. It’s what everyone was thinking…
  

• Noel Fielding hates his feet, saying youthful games of football have left them in a terrible state. ‘My toes are mangled, they've been broken. They're like hooves or talons,’ he said. ‘They're disgusting, I'd never get them out.’

SOURCES: The Sun, ITV.com, Seattle Times, Why, That's Delightful, Edinburgh Evening News, The Mail On Sunday, Chortle, RickyGervais.com, Stewart Lee mailing list, Chortle, The Guardian

Published: 20 Jun 2008