WTF: Weekly Trivia File

• 'Stand-up comedy is an artform is that you can fucking go nuts in.' Russell Brand.

• Chris Ramsey has been collared by police who thought he was a burglar – because he was trying to break into his parents' home. The comic set off the alarm at the house in South Shields, where he is staying during a run of shows in the North East – prompting officers to swoop. He tweeted: 'Just had five police cars and two riot vans at my mam’s house because the neighbours thought I was a burglar. Couldn’t make that up. The first copper didn’t recognise me and he was proper searching the house, then his six mates came and started saying "Oooosh!". Incredible.' He added: 'In all fairness, amazing response. I feel safe.'

• Paul Merton says his stay in a psychiatric hospital in the late Eighties was a good thing. ‘It acted as an ego brake,’ he said. ‘I was getting a bit Charlie Big Potatoes — I’d got what I wanted ever since I could remember.’

• Want to be on the next series of Rev? The chance to be in the smallest of walk-on parts is being auctioned on eBay – with bidding currently standing at £255. It’s stressed that it’s a non-speaking role; just a member of the congregation in scenes being shot at St Leonards Church, Shoreditch, next month. The auction is being staged by the Real and Smooth radio stations in aid of Help For Heroes.

• Comic Ross Sutherland has taken an old – and surprisingly racist – Bob Monkhouse routine, and stripped all the laughter from it. Eerie stuff:
  

• Greg McHugh's first attempt at impressing comedy industry bigwigs backfired - when he vomitted all over himself. The star of Gary: Tank Commander had been on a 6am bender the night before DVD talent scouts came to the 2008 Edinburgh Fringe sketch show he performed with Will Andrews - and it didn't end well. 'At the start of the show we were on exercise bikes for no reason,' he said. 'It was just a funny visual. We got off the bikes to do the opening sketch and I was sick on my trousers and had to keep going. That’s the most embarrassing thing that’s ever happened to me. There were people from 2 Entertain, the publishing business, and Channel 4 DVD for a potential deal and I think I scuppered our chances. I also had to feed Will a Tunnock’s tea cake after I’d been sick and I hadn’t had any opportunity to wash my hands. I’m not proud of that.'

• Bizarre showbiz links: Herbert Lom’s son Alec ghostwrote Jim Davidson’s autobiography Close To The Edge.

• Alan Davies auditioned to be in The Hobbit movie but got rejected. ‘I was up for it. I auditioned to be a dwarf,’ he says. ‘I met Peter Jackson and all that, and it was all quite enjoyable going for the part, but no....’

• Russell Brand yesterday treated a group of homeless people to a hearty breakfast in Hollywood's Newsroom Cafe... just a couple of weeks after inviting another homeless man into his Los Angeles apartment for a bath and a meal.

• Malcolm Hardee’s biographer John Fleming has probably seen just about every bit of video that exists about the ‘godfather of alternative comedy’. But this one, of an appearance on Irish TV show The Lounge, came as news to him:
  

• The Amazon page for Stan Boardman’s 1995 stand-up VHS reckons it starred John Travolta and Harry Belafonte.

• Following last week’s piece about Alan Sharp becoming only the second stand-up to feature on the non-celebrity version of Mastermind after Paul Sinha, we receive an email from Hazel Humphreys, regular compere of her own Funny Farm gig in Essex, pointing out that she’s been on twice, with the specialist subjects Richard Pryor in 2010 and Dave Allen just last week – but she gave her day job as occupation on both occasions, not comedian. And – unlike Mr Sharp – didn’t send out a press release about it!

• Tweets Of The Week
  Adam Hess(@Adamhess1): 1984 is such a stupid book. If a room is filled with all of your least favourite things ever then why would they call it 'Room lol'?
  Andy Dutton (@Andy_Dutton): I remember where I was when JFK was shot. I was doing Kevin Costner's make-up.
  Nick Motown (@NickMotown): @TwopTwips TEST the patience of your local Chinese by ordering numbers 1, 3, 5, 7 & 9 then returning them later saying they "taste odd".

Published: 28 Sep 2012