Al Murray

Al Murray on the Twitter joke trial

Al Murray, in court to follow the now notorious Twitter joke trial, calls it 'a Monty Python-does-Kafka brainfart'.

Al Murray with new girlfriend

Pub Landlord Al Murray got all he wanted for Christmas - a live-in girlfriend in the shape of Becky Sunshine.

The Big Interview: Al Murray

The Pub Landlord character started out as a caricature, but one that people might recognise. "The idea was that he's the kind of person you meet when you walk into a pub you've never been in before and he just starts on you verbally."

Skilful subversion or laboured, one-note jingoism? Al Murray's pub landlord character is one of British comedy's more divisive figures, with suspicions that the sharp irony of the act's early days has given way to boorish, catchphrase-spouting inanity. Regardless, Murray remains massively popular. This live show, recorded at London's Hammersmith Apollo, is taken from his recent Barrel Of Fun tour, which attracted 200,000 punters across the UK. Here, Murray sticks to safe, crowd-pleasing fare, including skits on the pope, ginger folk and squirrels.

Fred at the Fest: Day 10

Well folks, that's it for another year ... The final episode of Radio Scotland's flagship festival comedy show from Potterrow was on Friday and Fred hosted a star studded show featuring Al Murray, Jon Richardson and Robin Ince, amongst others...

The World of Al Murray, comedian

The comic talks to Georgia Dehn about being brought up on Shakespeare, singing with Queen and his Field Marshal Montgomery Action Man.

Al Murray - the new Alf Garnett?

Al Murray's a satirical mastermind, sending up bigotry and xenophobia with his rip-roaring stand up as the Pub Landlord. The only trouble is that some of the audience don't realise they're not meant to be agreeing with him...

The latest offering by Dave is the new quiz hosted by The Pub Landlord, Al Murray, in which contestants fight it out to win the grand prize of a frozen chicken. The big question is, is this show a turkey?

It started off well enough, with Murray interacting with his audience like he does in his normal stand-up act, picking on individual people. However, it went a bit downhill when he introduced the "Celebrity" Top Table, which consisted of comedian Olivia Lee, footballer Peter Shilton, and Dominic Littlewood who... does whatever he does.

Also there are Murray's assistants. One is Mr. Giblets, who is a man dressed up as a frozen chicken, who is no doubt glad his face is covered to save him the humiliation of people recognising him in the street. There is also Zoe Salmon, who I have never heard of before and I will probably never hear of again outside of the context of this programme.

With regards to the quiz itself, there were some fun categories (e.g., "Salt", "Body Matters", "Moustaches") and featured questions like "which of three members of the audience carried the most change", and "how many pickled eggs were there in a jar that Frank Skinner was holding". There was also the physical "Last Chance Saloon" challenge which featured contestants playing shuffleboard using various items of pub grub.

While there are good moments this show is mostly just OK. What we want from a show with Al Murray is him to do his stand-up in character. While we get some of that, it isn't enough. Why does there have to be a quiz? Can we not just have a show in which Al Murray just does his stand-up please?

On one final note, a bit of advice for Murray - don't end the show by singing "Eye of the Tiger", it just sounds naff.

Al Murray's Compete For Meat review: points for poultry

Compete for the Meat is diverting, bizarre and broad enough to entertain, and Dave material through-and-through. How much you enjoy it will ultimately depend on how much you like, or dislike, the beer, history and politics dispensing presenter.

Al Murray's Compete for the Meat: review

Overall, Compete For The Meat is a decent idea and a reasonable way to give Al Murray's Pub Landlord a new format to apply his brand of jingoistic idiocy, but the mechanics of the format need serious attention and 20-minutes of fat carved away.