Harry Hill

Comedy albums are no laughing matter

From Bo Burnham to Harry Hill, stand-ups are rediscovering the joys and profits of the long-player, says Julian Hall.

Michael McIntyre makes BGT contestant cry

New Britain's Got Talent judge Michael McIntyre reduced a nine-year-old boy to tears by buzzing him when he said Harry Hill was his favourite comic.

You could make a good argument that 2010 was the best year for a while in TV comedy. Harry Hill and Benidorm scaled new heights on ITV. The Inbetweeners brought E4 its biggest audience yet. On BBC2 a string of quirky sitcoms (The Trip, Grandma's House, Rev, Roger & Val Have Just Got In) felt like the stirrings of a new wave. And the likes of Michael McIntyre, John Bishop and Russell Howard made ever larger numbers of people rock with laughter just by standing on a stage, talking. So there's plenty for the annual prize-giving to mull over as Jonathan Ross calls the assembled funny-folk to order at the 02 in London. On past form, Ross will kick the evening off with a laboured and overlong routine of his own, despite being the 43rd best stand-up in the room, then he'll strive to keep order as a procession of writers, actors and comics seize both their trophies and the chance to be cheeky on live TV. And on past form, it should be a blast.

You may think that Harry Hill has cornered the market in raising laughs from the absurdities of television with TV Burp, but here David Walliams is taking a much wider remit, looking at not just TV but also cinema and ads. Walliams's conceit is that there are some ideas that are so ill-conceived and misguided, they become fascinating entertainment. His case is made with just the title of the BBC's 1978 contemporary black music show, Blackcurrent. It ran for one episode. And while everyone loves the scouts on the rollercoaster on Jim'll Fix It, who remembers the kid whose heart's desire was to eat a lemon in front of a brass band? Essentially this is a clips show, but Walliams's arch delivery and the sheer oddity of some of what's on display should elevate it above the run-of-the-mill.

There was always a risk in Charlie Brooker marrying a celebrity, particularly one at the lower, ITV2 end of television: that it would make him less willing to slag celebrities off.

The fact that he has pulled out of his weekly television column is certainly a bad sign.

The good news, however, is that Brooker is still making Screenwipe, in which he rants from a dark room that looks like it might smell vaguely of socks and takeaway pizza.

It's poking fun at television in the same way that Harry Hill does, except that Brooker is a bad, angry version of Harry; he's Harry with a hangover.

As usual, Brooker has chosen his targets well and this year he homes in on the extraordinary The Only Way is Essex, which, despite having watched it several times, I have still not been able to work out. What is it? Spoof? Reality show? If it's scripted, then I bow down to the scriptwriter, because he or she is a genius; if it's unscripted, then I despair at the empty ignorance and pointlessness of modern culture. It's just the kind of programme that Brooker loves laying into.

Another programme Brooker takes a look at this year is Sherlock, which promised so much but did the deeply illogical thing of changing Sherlock's character into an annoying, rude, know-it-all git, when anyone who has read the books knows that Holmes, despite being of infinitely superior intellect, was always polite to his inferiors (unless they were baddies).

Seeing Brooker bare his fangs and shake his fist over these programmes is always fun but there's a comforting element to this programme, too - that however nakedly hate-filled it gets, it doesn't matter, because it's obvious the hate comes from a good place: the desire for better television.

Shake off your Christmas torpor with a short, sharp hit of some of Harry Hill's best Burping bits - it's as bracing as a frosty Boxing Day walk. There's nothing brand new here, as it's a rag-bag assortment of highlights from previous festive Burps, but fans of the hit series will know what to expect. And even though it's all old stuff, we'll take what we can get. We need Harry on every week, bringing his own surreal kind of "sanity" to the crazy world of television.

He struck many viewers as a red coat-esque practioner of a very broad style of comedy when he auditioned for Britain's Got Talent earlier this year - and indeed he is - but someone at ITV obviously saw some potential in impressionist Paul Burling and has given him his own primetime Christmas slot. Frankly, half the entertainment of his show was just in marvelling at how far he's come.

Burling's Harry Hill - for which he is best known - is very good, but sort of pointless, because he's doing an impression of a man already doing an impression. The real Harry Hill obviously doesn't speak like that naturally, so there doesn't seem to be much need to impersonate him.

The fun of impressions is picking out the grating little idiosyncrasies in a person and exaggerating them for effect; not repeating the ridiculous speech patterns deliberately adopted by someone else as part of their own act.

This aside, Burling made a likeable and surprisingly assured presenter and the show's producers had selected the perfect range of celebrities to mock and berate.

Our host was also joined by a couple of talented female sidekicks, who did an excellent job of sending up Ann Widdecombe, Stacey Solomon and Cheryl Cole, despite having to appear in some pretty weak sketches.

It was all well and good and it'd be hard to feel any ill feeling towards Burling, who was given a flattering little intro from Simon Cowell at the beginning of the programme, but the truth is that comedy as silly as this wouldn't be given a look-in were it not Christmas.

Harry Hill's Little Internet Show: Episode 10 - Fearbag

Episode 10: Harry has a chance to end all the hate and fear in the world.

Harry Hill's Little Internet Show: Episode 9 - Re-enact

Harry lets the English Civil War Re-enactment Society practice in his garden, with unfortunate results.

Harry Hill's Little Internet Show: Episode 8 - Amy

Harry bags a Winehouse and shows his son Gary some tough love.