A tight 5: January 14

THE GLASGOW International Comedy Festival has launched its 2015 programme, offering nearly 106,000 tickets for 400 shows at 46 venues across the city from March 12 to 29. Among those taking part are Jimmy Carr, Dylan Moran, Stewart Lee, and the first live version of TV sketch show Burnistoun, as previously reported on Chortle. Festival website.

MARK THOMAS is to deliver the inaugural Linda Smith lecture, set up in honour of the late comedian. The event, which is hoped to become an annual occurrence, takes place on May 12 at the Gulbenkian Theatre at the University of Kent. The university hosts the British Stand-Up Comedy Archive, which started with donation of Smith’s professional effects by her partner Warren Lakin.

MEANWHILE, Malcom Hardee is to be commemorated in a London gig ten years after he died. The February 2 show at his old venue, Up The Creek in Greenwich, will feature his collaborators such as Martin Soan as well as some of the more alternative comedians from the modern circuit. Hardee fell into the Thames and drowned on January 31, 2005. Money raised from the gig will help fund a documentary about his life and the notorious Tunnel Club which he ran.

DAVID WALLIAMS has been named as the bestselling children’s author of 2014, with his titles netting ore than £7million. His His latest book Awful Auntie, sold more than 500,000 copies alone.

FRANK CARSON'S wife June has died in Blackpool, almost three years after her husband passed away at 85.

Published: 14 Jan 2015