A tight 5: April 7

Helen Keen is to make a new Radio 4 comedy show about technology. The stand-up, who has previously presented It IS Rocket Science for the broadcaster, will be recording Big Problems with Helen Keen from later this month. 'This show is about big problems and the brilliant, unlikely and sometimes downright dangerous, technological solutions humanity has come up with to solve them,' the BBC says. See our Free Tickets page to be in the studio audience.

ALISTAIR McGOWAN is to star in An Audience with Jimmy Savile, a new play based on the abuse perpetrated by the DJ and TV star. The script draws on transcripts of interviews, witness statements and official reports but is not verbatim, playwright Jonathan Maitland told The Guardian. The show opens at the Park Theatre in North London in June – the venue currently hosting Maitland's Margaret Thatcher play Dead Sheep, starring another impressionist, Steve Nallon.

TIM MINCHIN's Groundhog Day musical will be another two years coming, it has been announced. The show will debut at a Broadway theatre yet to be revealed on March 9, 2017, with previews starting on January 23 that year.

TERRY JONES has received the first ever Bath Plug Award at the Bath Comedy Festival, for his services to comedy for almost 50 years. Terry visited the festival for a screening of his films, The Wind in the Willows and Monty Python and the Holy Grail, plus a Q&A.

SUE PERKINS is set to front a new comedy panel show that's all about people with the same name. A pilot of Insert Name Here is being recorded later this month, promising 'a line-up of comedians and celebrities [with] weird facts, ridiculous games and a barrage of big laughs'. See our Free Tickets page to be in the studio audience.

Published: 7 Apr 2015