Frank Skinner

Tell you what, that Frank Skinner's wearing well, judging from the gig being shown on Channel 4 tonight. Mind you, it could be something to do with the fact that Frank Skinner Live At The Birmingham Hippodrome was recorded 11 years ago. Tonight just happens to be the first time it's been televised.

Rather less amusing was Russell Howard's unbroadcast episode of ITV's Tough Gig, a quickly shelved series in which the likes of Frank Skinner, Dara O'Briain and Patrick Kielty hung out with disparate groups of people for a week before performing comedy to them. 'Hopefully, it'll never appear,' Howard mutters. 'I spent a week with these extreme surfers in Ireland and though it was a lot of fun, I was quite naive about how they would edit it. They left out all the fun to give the gig a sense of jeopardy. Luckily, loads of great stories came out of it that ITV couldn't show. One of these surfers' initiation ceremonies is to go to a post office and try to buy pornography, which led to me being bollocked by a very angry old lady.

Frank Skinner said his favourite sitcom of the moment was Jack Dee's Lead Balloon. A surprising choice, perhaps, because it had more of an impact on BBC4 than it did when it transferred to BBC2, and suffered from comparisons with Curb Your Enthusiasm?

Nonsense, said Skinner. It's the best sitcom that anyone from the comedy circuit has done, obviously I was hoping it would be shit.

Sent to a self-discovery commune in Dorset, Frank Skinner lived with them for five days and then had to perform a stand-up routine about his experiences to the commune members, who were understandably afraid of being mocked.

Showing a kinder side to his nature, Skinner very skilfully won them over while poking gentle fun at their foibles, but mainly mocking his own insecurities. It was attractively warm.

The trouble is that the camera had shown us a screamingly funny tantric sex session in which one screechingly quasi-orgasmic woman "really went for it", according to Frank, who laughed uncontrollably to camera. In his act, this was watered down.

Is his responsibility to the joke, the feelings of his victim or telling the truth?