WTF: Weekly Trivia File

• The Faulty Towers Dining Experience is back in Edinburgh, recreating the chaos of the famous Torquay hotel for diners’ amusement. After one show in the Netherlands, a woman came up to the cast and said: ‘That was a wonderful show. Very funny. You know, it would make a very good TV series…’

• Russell Brand escaped with minor cuts and bruises after a heavy truck ploughed into the back of a new £150,000 Lamborghini Superleggera he was driving in New York.

• Alan Carr was once snubbed by Grace Jones after trying to meet her backstage. The comic went to see her show in the Camden Roundhouse last year with the designer Julian McDonald, who designed some of her stage outfits. He persuaded Carr to go to the dressing room after show, and barged them both to the front of the queue, saying: ‘It’s Julian and Alan Carr to see Grace’. Carr recalls: ‘I heard a growl “five minutes”come from inside, and after the five minutes of small talk with the bodyguards, the door was opened by Simon LeBon – I know, well random! Me and Julian go in, she obviously recognises Julian, being an international fashion designer and all but sadly not me “Get out! Get out” she screams (with tights on her head) she grabs my arm and shoves me out her dressing room and with a loud slam I am banished from Grace's inner circle – in front of the whole queue. Oh dear! Do you know though, what I love her even more?’

• Property news: Sacha Baron Cohen has brought a home in the Hollywood Hills for £13 million. While Chuckle Brother Paul Elliot is trying to flog a three-bedroom cottage he brought in Brittany six years ago for £158,000.

• Travelling from London to Edinburgh on the train, comic Matt Green tweeted idly: ‘"A girl on the train is explaining the entire plot of a film to her friend. It's quite useful as now I don't have to see it.’ Only it transpired that the friend in the overheard conversation was one of his Twitter followers, having once met him at a gig, leading to a certain embarrassment – and about 15 more minutes of Twitter ping-pong before saying ‘hello’ to each other in person.

• Of course, you could avoid such embarrassment on the East Coast line if you travelled to the Fringe the same way entertainer Will Armstrong is… He sent himself the 376 miles from Brighton to Edinburgh by courier, with only a can of Slimfast, one or two pocket peebags and a flip-cam to record his experience in the cardboard coffin. His show Post Me To The Fringe, is all about the trip. Meanwhile, his performing partner Matt Bonner, will make the journey only using public buses – as Fringe veteran Peter Buckley-Hill has previously done. Another double-act made the trip from London in a car on only one tank of petrol, but it’s such a blatant plug for the model of car, we won’t go into it here…

• The spirit of Andy Kaufman lives on. This heckler-comic stand-off ends in a grapple:
  

• Sean Hughes says the weirdest date on his last tour was the Roses Theatre in Tewksbury – because he learned that it was the theatre in which Eric Morecambe suffered his fatal heart attack. ‘It freaked me out a bit,’ Hughes said. ‘It was eerie. The idea that one of the greats died in a shithole freaked me out. At least Tommy Cooper died in the Palladium.’

• Nice to see the controversial Comedy God poll being run by Foster’s is impartial. The company itself is running ads on YouTube saying: ‘Vote for Jimmy Carr.’ No sign yet of any similar ads for the Frank Chickens…

• Tweets of the week:
  Peter Serfinowicz (@serafinowicz) Getting pretty good at my unicycle. I just learned how to do a wheelie!
  Tony Cowards (@TonyCowards): Everything in Edinburgh is reviewed during #EdFringe, I went up in 2000 and even the garage had a sign, ‘Petrol, Four Star’.
  Blake Connolly (@blakeconnolly): ‘Due to today's events, tonight's BBC News at Ten is a different episode to that advertised in the Radio Times.’

SOURCES: Chortle, Daily Mirror, Alan Carr.com, Mail on Sunday, Chortle, Chortle, Chortle, News Of The World, Twitter

Published: 6 Aug 2010