Aisling Bea

Radio Times review

Comedian Susan Calman hyperventilates at the prospect of this week's topic: maths. "I'm phobic about maths," she wails to a sympathetic Stephen Fry, who guides her gently through a maths-based limerick. Future host Sandi Toksvig (who takes over next series, after Fry's retirement), however, thinks maths can be "beautiful". During a jolly episode where Alan Davies is outnumbered there to one by female contestants (including comedian Aisling Bea), we learn the difference between an anagram and an aptagram, and ponder whether rhesus monkeys can count.

My Edinburgh: Aisling Bea

A comic and actress from Co Kildare in Ireland with an easy stage presence and cracking wit, Aisling Bea has enjoyed a rapid rise.

Aisling Bea interview

The prize-winning comedian on growing up on a stud farm, juggling three careers and making the leap into stand-up.

Fringe 2015: best comedy shows

Including Johnny Vegas, Katherine Ryan, Trevor Noah, Aisling Bea, Bridget Christie, Max and Ivan and Nina Conti.

Aisling Bea interview

Interview with Aisling Bea.

Seven questions with... Aisling Bea

Aisling Bea is a popular face on the comedy scene these days, with her most notable recent television appearances including her role in The Delivery Man and performing stand up at last month's Channel Four's Comedy Gala. With gorgeous Irish charm and a sharp wit, Aisling is fast becoming one of one of the nation's (and my own) most loved comics, both on television and the live comedy circuit. I asked Aisling these seven questions to find out more about her...

Radio Times review

The sixth year of Channel 4's admirable fundraising drive for Great Ormond Street Hospital. If you're an avid and knowledgeable fan of any of these acts, this might not be the best environment in which to see them, since there are an awful lot to get through. But to take the temperature of live comedy right now and see who's at the top of their game or on the up, it's ideal.

The really big names are led by Alan Carr, Michael McIntyre and Jack Dee, with Aisling Bea, Sara Pascoe and Katherine Ryan among the others to look out for. Also on the bill is sharp, politically astute South African stand-up Trevor Noah, getting in a UK gig while he can before he takes over the hallowed Daily Show in the US.

This hospital sitcom is half joke-fest, half soap opera, as if a team of American gag-writers had taken over Holby City. There isn't a wasted word. If you enjoy rat-a-tat one-liners, the way Friends and Roseanne were written, The Delivery Man will win you over.

The stories are set in a maternity wing where Matthew, an improbably handsome male midwife (Darren Boyd), has set all the women's hormones raging.

His boss (Fay Ripley) is throwing herself at him, his co-worker (Aisling Bea) is flirting like a stoat on heat, and even the expectant mums look ready to dump their husbands and waddle away with him.

After three episodes, we really need to know who Matthew will end up bedding. And that means we'll have to keep watching every week, because ITV weren't stupid enough to give away the whole series in advance.

If you want to binge-watch The Delivery Man, you'll have to wait till the end of the series. Or better still, treat yourself to half-an-hour each Wednesday. What's wrong with doing it the old way?

The Delivery Man is that most endangered of animals, a seriously funny ITV comedy, as in I laughed out loud, and I very seldom do that. The premise is simple. He's a copper who's suddenly retrained as a male midwife, and that's every bit as funny as it sounds, and must have been enough to get it past at least two phalanxes of ITV comedy bods deluded enough to give money to Keith Lemon rather than taking him behind a barn and hitting him with an axe.

Turns out it's quiet genius. This is partly down to Darren Boyd's pitch-perfect stutter-timing. Half way through his early watercooler moment with putative love interest Lisa (Aisling Bea), he compliments her gauchely on her selection of Dr Pepper - "Good choice. Did you know that Vietnamese prostitutes favoured this for its antispermicidal qualities?" On he stutters, with his tallness, insisting on comparing her favourably to a Vietnamese prostitute but still managing to insert the phrase "vaginal douche". And I suddenly knew I had to record the whole series. Others in the cast - Alex McQueen, Llewella Gideon - add gleeful panache. How ever did they get through the ITV "comedy" net?