Arnold Brown (I)

Tribute to be organised for Arnold Brown

A star-studded line-up of comedy stars are to celebrate alternative stand-up legend's Arnold Brown's 80th birthday next month.

Scottish Comedy Awards 2014 - Results

Arnold Brown has been awarded the lifetime achievement accolade at the first Scottish Comedy Awards.

Arnold Brown: Comedy, crowdfunding and chutzpah

Hello. I'm Arnold Brown. I've been referred to as 'the grandfather of alternative comedy'. Right now, I find myself at the early stages of both a film project and a crowd funding campaign.

The Establishment Club make a return appearance

The first event will take place on December 15 and the eclectic line-up includes Scott Capurro, Professor Laurie Taylor, Man Booker prize-winning novelist Howard Jacobson, Scottish comic Arnold Brown and music from Niggaz with Croissants and other surprise guests. As before Keith Allen will be master of ceremonies.

Arnold Brown seeks crowdfunding for new movie

Brown, who performed at The Comedy Store opening night, is hoping to raise £20,000 via crowd funding to develop a script, 'to put me back into the recognition I deserve before I die'.

This week's new live comedy

Previews of McNeil & Pamphilon, Wil Anderson and Arnold Brown.

Arnold Brown tells how comedy has changed

Arnold Brown, albeit packing a wit drier than a martini and sharper than a sherbet lemon, is the gentlest, most charmingly self-effacing of comedians.

This week saw the return of Stewart Lee's less-than-conventional stand-up show on BBC Two.

If you want to know who unconventional it is, let me put it this way - the show was meant to be about charity, but instead it consisted of Lee talking about crisps (he repeated the word "crisps" over 100 times during the show), and the programme had only four jokes which Lee deliberately deconstructed, giving advanced warning of when they were due to appear and explaining the jokes in detail.

This show is therefore not going to please everybody. Having said that I fail to understand why the BBC decided to broadcast the show at 23.20, where it would fail to get a larger audience. At least there is the iPlayer.

There were some changes to the format. Most of the sketches had gone. There was only one sketch at the end of the episode featuring Scottish comedian Arnold Brown. However, the original red button feature of the programme, in which Lee was "interviewed" by Armando Iannucci, now appears in the main show, breaking up the stand-up routines.

I am not sure whether this new format works. Maybe it is best to let it settle down for a little while, but I quite liked the original sketches, primarily because they featured comedians not usually seen on TV such as Simon Munnery and at one point Jerry Sadowitz as Jimmy Savile.

It is however a funny, interesting and above-all clever show. Lee makes you laugh and also think about the way comedy is presented. Just a shame it is on so late.

Mordrin McDonald: 21st-Century Wizard (Radio 4, Wednesdays) is proof that, somewhere beyond the usual shouting and swearing, real comedy still exists. It's written by David Kay and Gavin Smith, stars Gordon Kennedy (as Mordrin) and Jack Docherty (as fellow wizard Bernard the Blue) and concerns a 2,000-year-old being who fights evil whenever he isn't jam-making or chatting to the neighbours. He is a Scot and lives in Scotland which imbues in him a world view like those of the great Chic Murray or the marvellous Arnold Brown, tending to the school of rueful reflection and deflation of expectation. Asked if wizards can sense each others' presence he replies, "No, I just look out the window." He knows how to disarm a dragon and what to do when the binmen don't arrive. Every urban village needs a Mordrin. I hope this one stays longer on Radio 4 than his four allotted episodes. His chances of doing so are enhanced by good casting and strong production (by Gus Beattie, for independents The Comedy Unit).