Brian Limond

In praise of ... Limmy

Brian Limond's absurdist comedy is acerbic, sometimes puerile, but never cruel.

The most blisteringly original sketch show on television - the BBC seems to think it's too rich for English blood - returns for a third series. Brian Limond, the star, writer and director, goes to places other sketch shows would shy away from even if they knew they were there. Can his unsympathetic showbiz psychic, Raymond Day, top the series two sketch where he told a grieving father he'd switched off his son's life support a day too early?

What out-of-character monologues will Limond deliver to make you laugh and nag your psyche in equal measure for days afterwards? Gird yourself and find out. Limond is a one-off.

Limmy on how nothing is funnier than unhappiness

When Brian Limond was 15 and on holiday in Millport, he got drunk, became upset over a girl and slashed one his wrists with a broken bottle of Merrydown cider.

Confessions of an internet troll

There's a witch-hunt going on against internet trolls right now. But, argues Scots funnyman Limmy, randomly goading atheists, jocks and non-existent techno geeks can be fun.

Limmy admits he gets hurt when people don't get humour

There was a time when Brian Limond felt so hopeless, he wouldn't have considered himself worth two bob, let alone a TV show. A decade later, he has three TV series under his belt and a shiny statuette to help convince him otherwise.

As Brooker has observed in these pages, 2011 has been a grimly bumper cornucopia of events, what with Royal Weddings, the phonehacking enquiry and riots, to say nothing of Pippa Middleton's backside looming unseemly like a double moon over the media landscape. With the assistance of Doug Stanhope, Adam Curtis and Brian Limond, Brooker will be glancing back beneath arched eyebrow over the events, factual and fictional of 2011, dousing its overheated manias, controversies and moral panics with a cool and justly savage wit.

I'm not one for hyperbole, but Limmy's Show, which concludes this week, is clearly the best British sketch comedy since The Fast Show. Charming, original, surprising, inventive, ambitious, and above all funny, it's a pleasure to wallow in the singular vision of its creator, Brian Limond.

I love its willingness to fail, perplex and alienate, despite this series being more consistent than the first. I love that, with Falconhoof and Dee Dee, Limond has created two hilarious characters far richer than any devised by the disproportionately popular Little Britain.

And a fragment of my faith in the world has been restored by the fact that an offbeat comic auteur has been allowed to experiment unfettered on the BBC.

Comedy this unique is always going to polarise opinion, which can only be a good thing. Better that than adequate, committee-formed sketch comedies such as The Armstrong and Miller Show.

My only complaint is that this BBC Scotland production hasn't received the nationwide screening it deserves, despite the niggling suspicion that widespread exposure would result in BBC executives tampering with everything that's good about it. But for now, Limond has succeeded in hijacking the airwaves with some truly inspired and inspiring comedy.

The main event: Limmy's Show

The legend so far: in 2002, Glaswegian web designer Brian Limond began posting surreal, funny, homemade comedy videos on his website. In 2006, after gaining a cult following, he released a series of daily podcasts titled Limmy's World Of Glasgow, featuring characters such as over-sensitive ex-junkie Jacqueline McCafferty and spaced-out waster fantasist Dee Dee.

A welcome return for Limmy's Show, not just the most inventive Scots sketch show for yonks but nationally far superior to the lazy likes of Come Fly With Me or Tramadol Nights. Not all of Brian Limond's ideas work, but even the ones which puzzle are at least interesting and many are hilariously original. I'm particularly pleased to see the naively earnest phone-in adventure game host Falconhoof again, this time with an annoying jester sidekick, while a new TV psychic who looks oddly familiar is a good addition. But it's the funny peculiar elements which really make the show stand out, like Limond's running chats to camera in which he makes great use of his disconcerting stare. It's almost scary (though not as much as Come Fly With Me being recommissioned).

Limmy wonders what he should tell son about his career

Brian Limond has a dilemma - how does he explain to his son what dad did for a living when he was younger?