A tight 5: July 15

• A REPLICA of Kryten's head from Red Dwarf is among a massive sell-off of office equipment from the BBC Television Centre. Bidding has just opened on the item, and hundreds of other lots at auctioneers Peaker Pattinson. Also on sale is a replica of the head French And Saunders used in their Exoxist spoof, and a prop head and shoulders of Catherine Tate's Nan character as well as framed pictures of BBC comedy hits including The Vicar of Dibley, Last of the Summer, 2 Pints Of Lager And A Packet Of Crisps and Morecambe & Wise.

• PARKS AND RECREATION star Amy Poehler is to be named Comedy Person of the Year at the Just For Laughs comedy festival in Montreal later this month. The event will also honour The World's End director Edgar Wright as comedy director of the year and Arrested Development creator Mitch Hurwitz as comedy writer of the year.

• ASPIRING comedy writers are to have their work performed in front of top TV executives after winning the BAFTA Rocliffe New Writing Forum. Christiana Brockbank and writing pair Andrea Hubert & Ryan Cull – who are both stand-ups – will have an extract of their script performed to delegates at the Edinburgh international TV festival next month; while Stewart Thomson and writing pairs Lizzie Bates & Anna Emerson – two-thirds of the Boom Jennies sketch group – and Brona C. Titley & Tony Cooke will fly to the States to have their work performed at the New York Television Festival in October.

• COMEDIAN Gary Cooke became the first contestant to be booted off Celebrity Masterchef Ireland last night. The Apres Match star shrugged off the decision, saying: ‘I feel fine, I’m not devastated or anything.’

• Bill Cosby is to have his first televised stand-up special in 30 years. The comic, who turned 76 on Friday, has already recorded the show Far From Finished, which will air on Comedy Central in the States on November 24. His last show was Bill Cosby: Himself in 1983.

Published: 15 Jul 2013