Jason Manford

Jason Manford's free pub gig

Comic Jason Manford did a free gig at a pub - to thank a landlady who helped when he got a puncture in her village.

A slightly surprising - and very tough - vote from the judges after Monday night's show sent Dan, Pat and Tiffany through to tonight's live final at London's Hammersmith Apollo.

They've already played Blackpool's Tower Ballroom, but you can bet the nerves will be kicking in tonight as they play to the biggest audience of their careers and millions of voting viewers at home.

The winner will pocket £100,000 plus their own DVD, but all three finalists will be heading off around the country on tour in just three weeks' time.

Joining host Jason Manford are judges Alan Davies and Kate Copstick, who's warned Dan: "If you let me down I will have your Welsh rarebits on toast." I don't think she was joking.

So far, laughs have been desperately thin on the ground in Jason Manford's talent show for stand-up comedians. Still, with £100,000, a DVD deal and a nationwide tour up for grabs we can only hope the three remaining contestants have been keeping their best material till last in a bid to win those all-important viewers' votes and the approval of guest judges Bob Mortimer, Johnny Vegas and Ross Noble.

Less laughs for Jason Manford as viewing figures fall

Jason Manford's Show Me The Funny saw audiences dwindle on Monday night.

Will Jason Manford shine at opera singing?

Comedy star Jason Manford will be hoping to prove he was Born To Shine on the ITV celebrity talent show at the weekend - with his new skill for opera singing.

Here's a tricky question: Was it humanly possible to make shambolic Show Me The Funny any worse? Answer: Yes... by adding bagpipes.

For some inexplic­able reason the useless wannabe comedians joined the Scots Guards to see if they were any good at military circuit training. They weren't. Who cares?

With hapless host Jason Manford looking more forlorn by the second, venerable veteran Jo Brand suddenly cropped up from nowhere to inform us: "Either you make people laugh or you don't." Memo to the crap contestants... You don't.

Show disappointed as the contestants joined the army

Show Me The Funny saw Jason Manford, Alan Davies and Bob Mortimer judge the hopefuls at a military base, but the comic value of comedians participating in an army bootcamp is surprisingly low.

Host Jason Manford keeps out of the firing line as the nine remaining comics perform for the 1st Battalion Scots Guards at Catterick in North Yorkshire. But first they have to go through army training so they can write five minutes of new material.

"I shouldn't be doing this. I've got a verruca," complains Rudy, 47. It's the best one-liner of the night, although that's not actually part of his set.

It's weird, the way this formula is intent on squeezing comedy into an observational straight-jacket. And with critic Kate Copstick on the panel, I'd love to know what she really thinks of the end product, where viewers only judge most of the stand-ups on the basis of just one or two gags.

The big questions are: will Prince Abdi attempt another woeful accent and will Cole make a prat of himself again? Happily, the answer's "Yes" to both.

Gigglebox weekly #13 - Show Me The Funny

This week I have decided to devote the entire column to just the one show: the new comedy reality programme Show Me the Funny, hosted by Jason Manford. My review can be summed up in a few short words, but I'm not allowed to use those sorts of words so I have to elaborate.

Q&A: Jason Manford - "Piers Morgan is an oxymoron"

The Show Me the Funny host on what he loves and loathes on TV.