Ben Williams (III)

Udderbelly Festival 2013: the top ten comedy shows

This year's Udderbelly three-month programme offers over 40 chuckle-inducing shows. Time Out picks Tony Law, Ardal O'Hanlon, The Boy with Tape on His Face, Susan Calman, Doc Brown, Austentatious, Glenn Wool, Nick Helm and Simon Munnery.

Milton Jones's joke vault

38-year-old Mock the Week star Milton Jones has a joke on just about every subject imaginable. Don't believe us? We fired ten topics over to the loud-shirt-wearing gag man, and he shot back with ten one-liners from his joke vault...

Udderbelly Festival 2013: the comics' choices

Comedians playing the pop-up venue give their personal picks. Susan Calman recommends Andy Zaltzman; Doc Brown recommends Glenn Wool; and Michael Winslow recommends The Boy with Tape on His Face.

Horsing around with Harry Hill

Harry Hill tells Time Out how it feels to leave the cushy couch of teatime telly for the merciless jaws of the stand-up world.

'Cruising is the gig to have,' says black American comic Percy Crews 2, 'Cruising, now, is like the new Las Vegas.' No, he's not talking about searching for an anonymous fuck; the third and final episode of BBC2's doc series about the comedy industry focuses on the lives of cruise-ship comedians, and the big bucks they can earn at sea.

Through interviews with old-school entertainers like Nicholas Parsons and Tom O'Connor, we learn what's required to keep the passengers amused, and how being aboard with your audience means you're on stage even when on deck. What's the secret? 'It's getting as old as most of the passengers,' jokes one-man-band performer Bruce Thompson. But the cruise industry has inevitably changed over the last 30 years. Those loyal older passengers still want the safe veterans, but a new younger audience are coming aboard, and that's where Percy Crews 2 comes in, playing edgier, late-night shows on the more party-centric ships.

But we know this goes on, and if we didn't, it's not exactly a huge surprise. Interesting enough, but not the eye-opener we were hoping for.

Scandinavian comedians moving to the UK

Coming over here, taking our comedians' jobs... we investigate the Scandi stand-up invasion.

Tom Adams lounge gig

Musical comic Tom Adams travels to front rooms as a comedian-for-hire. He treats Ben Williams to one of his lounge gigs.

Time Out's 2013: the up-and-coming stand-ups to watch

Profiles of up-and-coming stand-up comedians Lucy Beaumont, Matt Rees, Pat Cahill, Mark Stephenson and Alfie Brown.

The best of 2012: comedy

Storytellers, dark clowns and ruddy good puns, Ben Williams picks his favourite (and least favourite) comedy gigs of 2012.

It all sounds very About A Boy. A selfish, immature thirty-something gets landed with caring for an intelligent, far-too-grown-up-for-his-age 11-year-old. But Uncle - the fourth and final pilot in the 4Funnies strand - isn't an fluffy romcom, it's a smart, foul-mouthed sitcom with a brilliantly rude lead performance by stand-up circuit fave Nick Helm.

Andy (Helm) is a depressed, selfish, washed-up musician on the cusp of killing himself. But just before he can take the suicide plunge he receives a call from his single-mum sister Sam (Daisy Haggard), who begs the miserable layabout to pick up her son, Errol, from school and take him to football practice. Andy hates Errol and Errol hates Andy, but when a blackmailing truce is called, they begin to get along. If this all sounds a little predictable, it is. But Uncle's sharp script shows promise - it's packed with jokes and neatly balances dark gags and cutesy morals. And Helm's performance makes Andy a sweary, sarcastic, self-centred treat.