A tight 5: December 8

JOE LYCETT and the Chuckle Brothers are among the panel on the revived version of Blankety Blank. David Walliams is hosting the new version, which will air at 6.30pm on Christmas Eve on ITV. Also appearing are Anne Robinson, Louis Walsh, Lesley Joseph and Coronation Street actress  Brooke Vincent.

CARL DONNELLY has put out an appeal for fans to guest host his podcast with him, while he is on tour and regular co-host Chris Martin is in Los Angeles. The Carl Donnelly and Chris Martin Comedy podcast has more than 50,000 followers on SoundCloud.  Fans who think they have the ‘wit and charisma’ to do the job in the towns Donnelly visits on tour next year should contact the podcast here.

MILES JUPP is to present a Radio 4 documentary on the early days of Ian Fleming, investigating the theory that he stole large elements of James Bond’s character from another writer, Phyllis Bottome. The Woman Who Invented James Bond airs at 10:30am on Saturday. 

AMERICAN comedian Adrianne Tolsh has died in New York at the age of 78. Her husband Bill Scheft, a former David Letterman writer, announced the news on Twitter yesterday, saying: ‘Gone to heaven, 5:45 this morning.’ She was best known for managing Manhattan’s Catch A Rising Star comedy club, where she also compered.

THE finalists have been announced in the Piccadilly Comedy Club’s new comedian of the year competition. Battling it out for the title on the final at the Comedy Pub on December 30 are Sean Gorman,  Dimitri Bakanov,  Ed Night, Andy Stedman, Nick Elleray,  Dan Audritt, Jon Long and Ben Pope 

Published: 8 Dec 2016