A tight 5: May 20

PAUL MERTON says he will never return to stand-up because of drunken hecklers. He said he wasn’t ‘temperamentally suited’ to stand-up on first place, and much prefers improv with the Comedy Store Players and his own Impro Chums – even though hecklers are still a risk. ‘A comedian can have put-downs ready but if you had a row of drunken hecklers at an impro show, they would completely destroy it,’ Merton told The Times.

JAMES ACASTER has won the best international show award at the New Zealand Comedy Festival for his new show, Recognise. The show will be performed at the Pleasance during this year’s Edinburgh Fringe.

ADAM HILLS is to host four primetime celebrity specials on Channel 4 from June 6. Fellow comics taking part include Jimmy Carr, Frank Skinner, Jason Manford Dara O' Briain, Steve Pemberton, Stephen Mangan and Ade Edmondson and Hills’ Last Leg co-hosts Alex Brooker and Josh Widdicombe.

ROYLE Family star Ricky Tomlinson is to be awarded the Freedom of Liverpool, for his charity and philanthropic work. The 74-year-old actor said: ‘There can be no better feeling than being honoured by a place that you love to your bones, and I am literally bursting with pride.’

LIZ LEWIN, the producer of Channel 4’s London Irish and E4’s Beaver Falls, has joined Channel 4’s comedy commissioning team to cover the maternity leave of deputy head of comedy Nerys Evans. She will be in the post until February.

Published: 20 May 2014