The pick of comedy on demand

The best comedy on demand

The Ridiculous 6

This Adam Sandler comic Western was released on Netflix yesterday, part of a deal with film comic that's been described as the company's 'biggest gambit yet' in its drive to overturn the Hollywood system. The comic's quality control is hardly consistent… but this film – which costars Steve Buscemi, Harvey Keitel, Nick Nolte, Rob Schneider, and Whitney Cummings, can't be worse that Pixels, can it? Can it?

KPFK Comedy Panel

This discussion between Groucho Marx, Steve Allen and Carl Reiner, hosted by George Fenneman, is a great comic find – as well as proving that there's nothing new under the sun as these comic icons discuss things like erosions to their freedom of speech and TV not knowing what to do with the new wave of comedy talent. It was recorded for KPFK, a radio station based in North Hollywood, on June 26, 1960. As the person who posted it to YouTube pointed out, it's a rarity in its own right… but especially for Groucho –who for once discusses something with sincerity, not flippancy. And hat tip to Kliph Nesteroff's Classic Television Showbiz blog for spotting it.

Tim Key and Gogol's Overcoat

Radio 4 releases a series of curious documentaries from its archive as a twice-weekly podcast called Seriously… Featured this week was this quirky, award-winning half hour from Tim Key in which he explored Gogol's madcap comic masterpiece in an knowing style befitting the original. The programme was chosen by veteran producer Piers Plowright, who called it 'a perfectly crafted documentary whose style imitates exactly the surreal absurdity of its subject. It's anarchic, unsettling, surprising, and very, very, funny.' And if you don't want to read the short story immediately afterwards, you can't have been listening. Download

Jackanory

Just released on the new BBC Store is a collection of classic stories to mark the 50th anniversary of Jackanory's first broadcast on December 13, 1965. Included are the brilliant raconteur Kenneth Williams, reading William Thackeray's tale The Rose and The Ring from 1975; and Spike Milligan reading Help! I'm a Prisoner In A Toothpaste Factory, a comic tale written by his long-term collaborator John Antrobus from back in 1979. It's £4.99 for each story.

Charity Starts At Home

Sarah Daykin, fresh from BBC Three's Together, and Kieran Hodgson, who's about to play Ian Lavender in the BBC's Dad's Army Story star in this online sitcom set in a tiny home-run charity. One of the new longer-form projects from indie house Turtle Canyon Comedy, it also stars e Richard Rycroft, Rachel Stubbings and Deborah Tracey:

Published: 12 Dec 2015