One comic's already profiting from Trump's presidency

WTF: Weekly trivia file

• ’Looking forward to Trump’s assassi… inauguration.’ Limmy.

• Josh Widdicombe is a richer man for Donald Trump getting elected. He bet £200 on the outcome and won £750. ‘I like to bet on things I don’t want to happen,’ he tells Graham Norton on his BBC One chat show tonight.

• Watch out Alec Baldwin... American comedy club The Laugh Factory is on the look-out for a Donald Trump impersonator, and says you don't have to be white or male to get the job. The winning candidate will get to front a new online show, Fake News/Real News, as well as performing at the Hollywood club. 'We’ve launched a competition that is open to every race, creed, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin and age,' Laugh Factory owner Jamie Masada said. To enter, post a video clip of your impression to YouTube and tweet the link to @TheLaughFactory with the hashtag #TrumpImpression. Submissions open today and close on February 28.

• Someone has spotted a continuity error in Jim Gaffigan’s new Netflix special, Cinco… as in most scenes he is seen with a cordless microphone, but occasionally it’s wired:

@netflix @JimGaffigan wired?! pic.twitter.com/rGpVSO5DXQ
— Taylor Bannister (@BannisterTaylor) January 14, 2017

@netflix @JimGaffigan unwired. pic.twitter.com/lRDB2GaVHr
— Taylor Bannister (@BannisterTaylor) January 14, 2017

• Brighton - where else? – is to host a vegan comedy festival. Cheese-dodgers Lou Sanders and Carl Donnelly are among the acts taking part in the event, part of the Vegfest UK event in the Brighton Centre on March 11 and 12.

• Lorraine Kelly had to laugh off a faux pas yesterday when she told disabled comedian Liz Carr she had 'funny bones'. Silent Witness star Carr pulled the ITV presenter up on her unfortunate choice of phrase, saying: 'That’s just my medical condition, but thanks for bringing that up!' Lorraine laughed: 'You know what I mean! You're a funny woman.'

• One for Pseuds’ Corner? Tim Minchin says ‘Matilda was confined by its aesthetic and by its tone to a certain Dahlian angularity.’

• Alfie Brown predicts that he'll recognise some of his audience when he performs at the Soho Theatre next month – because they'll have been passengers in his taxi. While he builds his stand-up career, the comic works part-time as an Uber driver, having recently got his private hire licence. But his email address betrayed the fact he had a website, and the examiners discovered he was a comedian. They 'started playing my comedy album to me while I was trying to map out a route from Willesden Junction to Haringey, ' he told fellow comics Carl Donnelly and Chris Martin on their podcast. 'They just started laughing. It was absolutely brutal'. But while Brown's comedy material can divide critics, he can now say he's a five-star comic... with passengers giving him an average rating of 4.95.

• Veteran improviser Colin Mochrie has revealed that he has a transgender daughter. The Whose Line Is It Anyway comedian mentioned her in an online post urging more tolerance. He tweeted: ‘My 90-yr-old mother-in-law and 87-yr-old mother love and acceptance of our trans daughter warms me. Wonder why some who are younger can’t.’ But he couldn’t entirely avoid a joke, saying: ‘The negative is that my mom refers to the [LBGT] community as BLT. It's a learning curve.’

• Patrick Kielty’s company, Boxed Productions Ltd, made £927,020 profit last year,it was reported this week.

• Blue Monday may be a made-up conceit by a travel company, but Manchester’s Frog And Bucket comedy club did its best to combat what was allegedly the most depressing day of the year, by leaving envelopes around the city’s Northern Quarter, each of which contained tickets to shows.

• As the Equity Comedians’ Network vows to get tough on rogue promoters, has anyone else noticed the remarkable similarity between its logo and the Black Lives Matter symbol?
logos

• Steve Carell got fans of The Office all excited this week when he tweeted: 'Breaking News: "The Office" returning to NBC.' The announcement set the Twittersphere alight with joy... until six minutes later when he added: 'Wait, sorry. I meant Will and Grace. (Typo)'. Talk about fake news…

• Cop-turned-comic Alfie Moore will be the entertainment at this year’s Meat & Poultry Processing Awards.

Tweets of the week

The guy who ran for president on his ability to make and close deals could not successfully book a Bruce Springsteen cover band.
— Chase Mitchell (@ChaseMit) January 17, 2017