Anglo-Irish comedian Dave Allen is best remembered for his various ratings-winning sketch and stand-up series, but a number of fascinating, exploratory documentaries such as In Search Of The Great English Eccentric, are also worthy of modern reverence.
Graham McCann looks at Hogmanay television broadcasts over the years, including Live Into 85 - a show "so stupendously awful" that it killed that deeply dubious broadcasting tradition stone dead.
With decades patronising the esteemed fundraising efforts of the Royal Variety Performance, just what do the Royal family themselves genuinely find funny?
Heard the one about the comedy writers who became some of the most powerful comedy executives in the country? The remarkable tale of Frank Muir and Denis Norden's time at the top of the TV tree is one that all broadcasters could learn from today.
Tony Hancock was one of the most successful comedians of his generation, but a combination of personal problems and increasingly erratic professional decisions turned his 1966 'comeback' at the Royal Festival Hall into an unfortunate night to forget...
Censorship can seem to be ever-growing in modern times: new "woke" sensibilities clashing with long-established political correctness, and both in turn with classical liberalism - but it is nothing new, as Peter Cook, Dudley Moore and Dave Allen found out 50 years ago this month on Australian television.
