BCG Daily Wednesday 12th March 2014

Can the BBC survive the Twenty Twelve treatment?

Can the Corporation survive the Twenty Twelve treatment? James Rampton finds out on the set of W1A.

Residents of Stella's filming location are 'fed up'

Stella fans may be welcoming the news that the comedy drama is returning for a fourth series - but one family who live where it's filmed say "enough is enough".

Radio Times review

The last and nastiest visit to the ninth house on the left, which this episode is a looming, draughty pile out of place on a suburban street. Aimeé-Ffion Edwards, as excellent here as she was in Skin and Walking and Talking, is a schoolgirl babysitter who's been promised a bumper payday but immediately finds that the job, set by icy householder Helen McCrory, is too creepy to be worth the cash.

To say more would spoil, but as the creaking terror takes hold you'll marvel at how Steve Pemberton (absent) and Reece Shearsmith (in full Hammer horror mode) can pepper the elegant script with gags without breaking the spell.

Radio Times review

I arrive late to Nurse, Radio 4's series of short snappy comedies. It's in six parts and by the time I'd caught up with the good reviews, it was already halfway through.

Written by Paul Whitehouse and David Cummings, it features a community mental health nurse (Esther Coles, who contributes additional material). She sounds as patient, good-humoured and capable as you'd want a community mental health nurse to be. She visits a host of people in their own homes, almost all of them Paul Whitehouse.

In episode four (my episode one) there's a chat about the value of gardening, with Billy "finding God at the end of a spade". Ray has some brilliantly funny lines (I cannot repeat here the one involving the Isle of Man), but his bravado can't mask the hints at his troubled life. Herbert believes in the art of letter-writing. He's written to Kingsley Amis and won't countenance the suggestion that he's dead: "No... he's just having a break."

Tommy challenges Nurse: "You think I'm away with the fairies." And Lorrie, one of the few characters not played by Whitehouse, explains why she won't take her medication, even though her daughter has been taken away from her: "When I take my pills, me no hear Jesus."

Luckily the Radioplayer is our friend. Catch up with Nurse while you can.

Why clubs are afraid of booking 'too many women'

After a comedy night dropped a female comic because it had 'too many women' on the line-up, stand-up comedian Ava Vidal offers the real reasons why so many male promoters think girls galore will spoil all the fun.

Review: Russell Howard, SSE Hydro, Glasgow

Unsure if he's talking about independence or the English, the statement is met with almost complete silence. As Higher English teachers love to say: know your audience.

Review: Jack Whitehall, Capital FM Arena

Messing with the mixture that turns a stand-up from cringing posh boy into justifiable people's champion is a tricky but necessary project. It has been years in waiting for Jack Whitehall, but he moved a few steps closer as the confetti cannons marked the interval - half way towards the most hilarious show he has produced to date.

QI: some quite interesting facts about cuneiform

A quietly intriguing column from the brains behind QI, the BBC quiz show. This week: QI has a cuneiform fetish.

Preview: Inside No 9 - The Harrowing, BBC Two

Draw the curtains, turn off the light. It's the last Inside No. 9, sob, and it's a genuine fright fest.

Roy Chubby Brown records World Cup song

Roy 'Chubby' Brown and Journey South have teamed up with songwriter and England fan Robin Ward to release the World Cup song Hopes of a Thousand Men.

The Walshes marks new direction for Graham Linehan

Graham Linehan's new show steers away from the daft and broad work which made his name.

TV review: Inside No. 9 - 'The Harrowing'

After six episodes, there's little more to be said about the quality of the writing, the pitch-perfect delivery of the performances, the matchless pleasure of anticipating a brand new story every week, like a series of fiendish, hilarious Christmases, but what can be said about The Harrowing is this; the abrupt, abject revulsion of it is wretch-inducing.

Jason Manford lined up for North East comedy festival

Stop me if you've heard it, but Jason Manford has just been lined up to open this year's Jesterval event.

The Walshes interview

An interview with Diet of Worms. "It was very polite of Graham Linehan to humour us..."

A quota for female comedians is no way forward

Watching episodes of QI or Have I Got News For You where women feature, I frequently struggle to avoid the conclusion that they were chosen less for their sense of humour and more for their ability to encapsulate the female experience.

Tim Key, Arcola Tent - comedy review

Like the recent work of Daniel Kitson, whom Tim Key collaborated with last autumn, this bold in-the-round show takes storytelling into unexpected places.