BCG Daily Tuesday 14th January 2014

Uncle - TV review

Uncle is warm, dark, rude - and hilarious enough to fill the comedy void since Him & Her and Toast of London ended.

Show Blackadder to start WWI discussion says historian

The BBC should broadcast Blackadder Goes Forth as part of its First World War commemoration, historian Kate Williams argues.

House of Fools: Reeves and Mortimer's big night in

Vic and Bob are back in BBC Two's House of Fools. The duo explain why writing a sitcom was their biggest test yet.

Liam Williams, Soho Theatre, review

Liam Williams's first night at the Soho Theatre wasn't his best, but he is still a rather special stand-up comic.

Milton Jones: I've paid my kids to come up with jokes

His mum wasn't keen on gigs at the back room of pubs but Milton Jones won his parents over with comedy sets on Radio 4.

Russell Brand: 'Shut up you Harry Potter poofs'

Russell Brand called Cambridge University students 'Harry Potter poofs' during a Union address on Monday night. He used the derogatory term when telling students from one college to be quiet, after they cheered for Brand when he chose their crest as his favourite.

Did this pic of Jennifer Saunders smoking shock you?

Two writers who have suffered cancer differ in their views on Jennifer Saunders smoking after her illness.

Golden age when TV comedy shaped nation's future

To Harold Wilson's way of thinking, the father-and-son rag-and-bone men of Oildrum Lane, played by Wilfrid Brambell and Harry H. Corbett could cost him the election, if millions stayed at home to watch instead of going out to vote.

The good, bad and ugly faces of political comedy

I often bang on about how comedians make good ambassadors, last week the case both for and against this assertion was vividly made. The most recent case for the defence: Jerry Sadowitz.

Radio Times review

Imagine a 1970s domestic sitcom left so long in the cupboard it's gone fizzy, then been taken out, dipped in sprinkles and thoroughly baked by the surreal imaginations of Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer. That's the drift here. The notional setting is Bob's house, where Vic is a troublesome lodger who fills the place with junk - a painting of a pygmy, tins of pineapple, and so on. In the opening scene Vic sings a song about a knight's gauntlet he has just acquired, then Bob berates him for getting toilet rolls and curtains mixed up. Matt Berry arrives as their friend Beef, an expansive lothario of the kind Berry does better than anyone, and there's a man-eating neighbour called Julie.

The farcical sort-of-plot they get wrapped up in barely matters (Vic gets wedged in a hole cut between the two houses) and it's as obsessed with body parts and weird about the opposite sex as a 12-year-old boy. But if you like Vic and Bob's ludicrous humour, it's very funny.

No God? No problem: the comic atheist church

Sanderson Jones is the stand-up comedian atheist preacher who hopes to see hundreds of his Sunday Assemblies all over the world in the next two years, and is at the forefront of the godless-congregation movement.

Critic's choice comedy

Previews of Rob Newman, Robin Ince, Ritzy Crackers, The London Jam and Live at the Chapel.

5 sitcom revivals we don't want to see happen

Why we should not revive Absolutely Fabulous, The Inbetweeners, Only Fools and Horses and The Royle Family amongst others.

Frank Skinner declined Benefits Street narrator role

Frank Skinner has revealed that he turned down an offer to narrate Channel 4's controversial show Benefits Street.

Freddie Starr held by Operation Yewtree over new claim

Freddie Starr has been re-arrested by police probing historical allegations of sexual abuse.

House Of Fools episode 1 review: The Conan Affair

Not all of the laughs take off as the pair were probably intending, but that's par for the course with Vic and Bob's humour. But even when the gags misfire, House Of Fools is swept along by their innate likeability.

Tom Rosenthal interview

Tom Rosenthal returns in two hit sitcoms this year, Friday Night Dinner and Plebs. We lend him an ear.

British comedies we'd like to see return

Alan Partridge, The League of Gentlemen and Spaced get our vote.