A tight five: March 21

JACK DEE is working on a new idea where he plays an unsympathetic ‘agony uncle’ to his audience’s problems. He will be performing five nights of Jack Dee’s Helpdesk at London’s Soho Theatre from May 6, in which he and a panel of experts will ask audience members to share their troubles and ‘in no way have them ridiculed in front of a live audience’. A Twitter feed has also been set up for the project.

FORMER comedy promoter Mike Bennett, who ran the Comedy Shack in York’s Bonding Warehouse in the Nineties has died at the age of 55. He had been suffering from multiple sclerosis since 2007 and bowel cancer since last year. Bennett was briefly in a comedy double-act called The Two Tones with Paul Osborn, before quitting comedy to set up York’s Richard III museum.

DRIFTERS star Jessica Knappett and Ben Bailey Smith – aka rap comic Doc Brown – have joined the cast of Laid, the remake of the Australian comedy in the works for ITV2. The pilot episode, which also starred Jessica Ransom, has just completed filming. Jonathan Harvey – who previously wrote Gimme Gimme Gimme and Beautiful People – worked on the script. The original ‘black romantic comedy’ aired on Australian network ABC in 2011 and 2012 and followed 30-year-old Roo McVie whose ex-boyfriends start dying under mysterious circumstances. It starred Alison Bell with stand-up Celia Pacquola as her flatmate EJ.

CIO DAV, a 20-year-old, who is studying film production at the University of West London, has become the latest finalist in the Chortle Student Comedy Award after winning the heat at Goldsmith’s College in the capital last night. The next heat of the award, sponsored by ALCATEL ONETOUCH and Universal Pictures (UK) is in Manchester on Sunday. Her is Dav’s winning set:

ANGELOS EPITHEMIOU is to join comedy-based subscription radio station Fubar from next Wednesday, co-hosting Barry From Watford’s 7pm to 10pm show.

Published: 21 Mar 2014