Christ in a box!

It's the weekly trivia file

Steve Coogan has become an action figure – Rock Me Sexy Jesus – as a promotional tool for his latest film, Hamlet 2, in which he plays a High School drama teacher staging a hugely offensive play. Here’s the song from the movie:

As Russell Crowe prepares to take on the mantle of Bill Hicks, strange news reaches us about the 1974 film Lenny, in which Dustin Hoffman played Lenny Bruce. It seems Neil Diamond auditioned to play the troubled comedian, in a bid to shake off his squeaky-clean image. According to Diamond’s biographer David Wild, the singer complete a successful screen test. ‘In just a few seconds, he somehow transformed himself into a believable dirty-mouthed, Constitution-defending comedian,’ he said.

The troubled Edinburgh Fringe Box Office has been nominated for the Malcolm Hardee award for comic originality at the festival ‘for introducing surreal humour into the normally dull ticketing process’. Also nominated are comics Edward Aczel, Peter Buckley Hill and Otto Kuhnle; plus Irish fiddler Aindrias de Staic.

Mathew Horne says he won’t be working with James Corden forever. ‘We’re not Cannon and Ball,’ he says. ‘I plan to hook up with others in the future.’ Oh, and he was also bitten by a grass snake near Highgate station in London this week.

Ricky Gervais has cast his Extras co-star Shaun Williamson as his Dad in his film, The Other Side Of Truth – even though, at 43, Shaun is four years younger than the comic.

Chris Neill needed lemons for one of the recipes he cooks during his Edinburgh show at the Assembly Rooms. He popped into the Scotmid supermarket and asked where they were. ‘In the exotic fruit section,’ came the reply.