A tight 5: November 24

Stephen Merchant is making a TV series based on the Lip Sync Battles from Jimmy Fallon's Tonight Show. Merchant will executive produce the show with actor John Krasinski as well as occasionally appear. A pilot episode is being shot in New York in January before heading to America’s Spike network in April. This clip of Merchant lip-synching on the Tonight Show in September 2013 has been a viral hit, getting more than 33 million views on YouTube.

RUSSELL PETERS, the Canadian-Indian stand-up who is one of the world’s biggest box-office comedy draws, has announced a show at London’s O2 Arena. His Almost Famous world tour show on Saturday April 18 goes on sale at 9am on Friday. Peters will also take the tour to Australia, New Zealand and South Africa in February and March.

FORMER Fast Show star Charlie Higson is writing a ten-part ITV series based on the Jekyll & Hyde story, but reset in glamorous 1930s London. It will be filmed in the capital from February until July next year, and producers promise ‘spooky creatures, ghouls, zombies, werewolves and vampires’.

FRANKIE BOYLE has pulled out of a charity gig tonight after coming down with a bug. He told his Twitter followers that he wouldn’t be able to perform at the Edinburgh Festival Theatre in aid of the Euan MacDonald Centre for Motor Neurone Disease ‘as I’m pretty much tripping with some puking bug’.

INDIAN comic Papa CJ has been named ‘Asia’s Best Stand-up Comedian’ at a ceremony in Kuala Lumpur. He started stand-up a decade ago in London before helping encourage the comedy scene back in his homeland by establishing open mic nights. The accolade was handed out by Top 10 Of Asia magazine at the Top Asian Corporate Ball.

Published: 24 Nov 2014