BCG Daily Thursday 7th August 2014

Edinburgh festival 2014: 10 questions for Mark Watson

As the multi-award winning comic enters his 10th year at the festival, we speak to him about kids, 24-hour shows, and his dreams of becoming a sports commentator.

Ian Lavender: Dad's Army cost me a career in the movies

Ian Lavender was 22 when he was cast as mummy's boy Private Pike in Dad's Army. It was a role that would come to haunt his career, stopping him from getting meatier parts. His one-man Edinburgh show explains all.

Edinburgh Fringe 2014 interview: Gabby Best

Marijana is the alter ego of character comedian Gabby Best, who hit the headlines last year by going undercover at London Fashion Week as outrageous designer Carmen de Beauvoir. The Edinburgh Fringe poses a less glamorous challenge for Gabby but it's one she knows how to survive.

Explain yourself: Tim Vine

Tim Vine, younger brother of the BBC presenter Jeremy, is best known for his quick-fire one-liners and crowd-pleasing puns, and also specialises in absurdist props, artful tangents and convivial musical interludes. In 2010 he won the funniest joke award at the Fringe with, "I've just been on a once-in-a-lifetime holiday. I'll tell you what, never again." The Joke-amotive is back in Edinburgh with his first stand-up tour in four years.

Radio Times review

Series two of a sitcom that was billed in 2012 as a transatlantic casting coup, but turned out to be part of a domestic comic's rise to the top. Saturday Night Live alumnus Andy Samberg jetted over to play a hippy-ish American who crash-lands into an ordinary Staffordshire family. Having been overshadowed by the man playing the head of the household - Greg Davies - Samberg has been killed off, replaced by Twilight star Taylor Lautner as a second airheaded interloper.

With Esther Smith taking over as Davies's hippy-loving daughter, and a lot of silly setting up to do, this episode feels transitional. But the show's main problem is still there: Davies is funnier than the rest of the cast. And since series one went out, Man Down has shown us that his own scripts are a lot stronger than this.

Radio Times review

From the makers of The Inbetweeners comes a new sitcom that also boasts two graduates from Channel 4's first-class university caper Fresh Meat: Charlotte Ritchie (aka neurotic Oregon) and writer Keith Akushie. Ritchie is perfect as selfish, work-shy Hannah while Tom Stourton - best known for pillorying his Etonian education on the stand-up circuit - plays her needy brother Dan.

The first episode of a new comedy is often a strained affair, but Akushie is a good student, walking the same fine line between laughs and cringe-worthy antics as Fresh Meat. Tonight, Hannah is so desperate to befriend a new boss she pretends her brother uses a wheelchair.

Picking up girls & boys, court case on werewolf erotica

Yesterday in the Grouchy Club show at the Edinburgh Fringe, showman Adam Taffler picked up a girl. Literally. He does it all the time.

Reduced Shakespeare Company: comedy chat, abridged (Link expired)

The Reduced Shakespeare Company are back with less. Kate Copstick finds out what's shrinking now.

Richard Herring: 'I'd like to be good at everything' (Link expired)

Being dropped by the BBC seemed like a disaster at the time, but Richard Herring is now grateful he was able learn his craft away from the spotlight. And with his award-winning podcasts helping to grow his stand-up audience, the comedian is content, creative and in control, finds Kate Copstick.

New David Walliams novel to be 'Awful Auntie'

The book, described as having "all the hallmarks of a Walliams classic and a cast of unforgettable characters", is about young Lady Stella Saxby and how her Awful Aunt Alberta tries to cheat her out of her inheritance. But Stella has Soot, the cockney ghost of a chimney sweep, and is determined to fight back.

British TV comedies on the big screen

The good, the decent and the ugly of British TV comedies on the big screen.

Cariad Lloyd's shapeshifting comedy in Edinburgh

From solo shows to improv and double acts ... why Lloyd is the face and the future of the fringe.

The Inbetweeners 2 - review

Surprisingly decent sequel to the comedy spin-off starring Simon Bird and Joe Thomas.

Fringe Q&As: Margaret Thatcher Queen of Soho

We speak to Maggie of Margaret Thatcher Queen of Soho about warm bovril toast, sandal-wearing Guardian readers and why Alex Salmond is her favourite Scottish comedian.

Edinburgh festival 2014: 10 questions for Russell Kane

The TV host and comedian talks method acting and madness as he prepares to play a psychopathic criminal in his new one-man show.

Cuckoo, review: Taylor Lautner is 'very good indeed'

Twilight star Taylor Lautner is a successful addition to this hugely enjoyable comedy, says Gerard O'Donovan.

Cuckoo: Taylor Lautner's BBC comedy is short on laughs

The second series of BBC Three comedy Cuckoo now stars Taylor Lautner, but it remains predictable.

Alex Brooker interview

A year on from my last chat with him, I caught up with Alex Brooker to find out what the past year has been like for him.

British audiences value comedy more than Americans

Abigoliah Schamaun on why she left New York for London.

Charlotte Ritchie: I love playing unlikeable characters

The 24-year-old sits down with RadioTimes.com to talk Siblings, Fresh Meat and why women are seen as less funny than men.

Siblings review

Siblings may not have thrown up anything excitingly original but it did provide a good thirty minutes of the sort of enjoyable, cringe-worthy and often bawdy comedy.

Siblings: Relationships we love to hate

To celebrate the start of Siblings, a new BBC Three sitcom featuring dysfunctional brother/sister duo Dan and Hannah, we looked back at the highs and lows of sharing your life with a sibling in 10 popular BBC comedies.

Why is Taylor Lautner in a BBC3 sitcom?

Taylor Lautner was Hollywood's highest-paid teen - so why is he in a BBC3 sitcom?

Josie Cunningham begging Keith Lemon to sleep with her

Josie Cunningam is STILL begging Keith Lemon to sleep with her, despite him pleading with fans for a second time to stop tweeting him about her.

Almost five days after Josie first asked the Celebrity Juice host to sleep with him in return for her "disappearing from all media", she's asked him once again if he'd be up for it.

Charlotte Ritchie & Tom Stourton interview

We caught up with the duo recently to find out nine things about the show...

Tom Stade's guide to stand-up

The Canadian comedian shares his advice for standing out at the Edinburgh Festival.

Comedy trio are getting the drinks in at the Fringe

Manchester's comic threesome want their show to be more like a good night down the pub with friends.

James Corden's biggest gamble

A good woman's love pulled him back from yobbery. Now is this talented but fragile star risking all by taking on the toughest job in US TV?

The Casual Violence extended interview - audio

Features Editor James T Harding caught up with writer-producer James Hamilton and actor Dave Arrondelle to find out more about how Casual Violence came about, the group's shows this year, the advantages of doing both a paid and free show, and the difficulties of straddling both narrative and sketch formats.

Eddie Pepitone interview

US comedian Eddie Pepitone on his country's 'dead' political system, and how he would heckle Obama.

How we made Boomers

Having such a talented and experienced cast was a real blessing, says Paul Schlesinger.

Sushi Tap Show: raw tap-dancing talent

A Japanese man dressed as a 10-year-old girl plays a recorder to make a trio of female Japanese tap dancers dance the Riverdance. It all makes uproarious sense in the crazy world of Sushi Tap Show, the gloriously bonkers new production from Tokyo Tapdo. With a lateral approach to tap, the hyperactive company dance through their surreal flights of fancy with gusto and childlike joy.

Ride of the Wagnerian: a life in opera

Ride of the Wagnerian is a new stand-up show by Italian comic Giacinto Palmieri. He uses his obsession with Richard Wagner's epic opera cycle, Der Ring des Nibelungan, as a springboard for an hour of comedy on the top floor of Just the Tonic at the Mash House. Entering the stage from behind the audience, conducting an imaginary orchestra as he goes, the bearded and spectacled comedian soon puts the audience at ease with his charming, personal approach to high art, and his tangible passion for the great composer.

Liam Williams: more than first-year agitprop

After winning best-newcomer for his debut solo show last year, acerbic young stand-up Liam Williams returns with a set with 'substance'. The subject, and the title, is Capitalism, a framework which is to make sure, Williams tells us, that he doesn't end up squawking about his personal travails for an hour straight.

5 Scottish comedians to see at the Fringe (Link expired)

It's no secret that the Fringe attracts some of the biggest names in comedy from across the globe. But Scotland has plenty of homegrown talent to get your sides splitting this year. Sam Shedden picks out just five of the best.

Pete Firman interview (Link expired)

Pete Firman has a certified 'veteran' stamp next to his name when it comes to the Edinburgh Fringe.