Josh Widdicombe

For once, it actually is openly about the money, money, money as the cream of mainstream comedy gathers for C4's annual Great Ormond Street fundraiser. And, while it's a bit harsh to call Jessie J a comedy act, there she is, headlining while plenty of big names wait in the wings for their three minutes on the mike. Such is the extraordinary popularity of stand-up now that plenty of the comedians in question (even - whisper it - a good number of the mediocre ones) will also be used to arenas of this size and paydays to match. Lee Evans, Michael McIntyre and Sean Lock will have seen it all before, but for up-and-comers such as Seann Walsh, Josh Widdicombe and Paul Chowdhry, this represents a significant opportunity to raise the profile. Oh, to be in that green room when someone crashes and burns...

This amusing stand-up showcase returns for its fourth series. Host Jon Richardson heads up a team of fellow comedians Seann Walsh, Josh Widdicombe, Sara Pascoe, Paul Chowdhry and new member Andrew Lawrence. They take it in turns to do a spot of stand-up on the stage of London's Clapham Grand, taking an alternative look (which mostly means they swear sometimes) at the events of the week.

Interview with Josh Widdicombe

Josh Widdicombe talks about gigging with Michael McIntyre, future plans and why comedians are insecure.

Mark Dolan presents this ambitious new comedy panel show about the world of advertising. The set-up is as follows: each week, the two team captains - comedians Micky Flanagan and Mark Watson - are joined by an advertising industry insider and a celebrity guest. The teams are then quizzed about adverts from past and present, as well as being challenged to film their own advert, with the studio audience voting for the best. This first edition focuses on public information films, with ITV's bubbly daytime host Lorraine Kelly and the award-winning stand-up Josh Widdicombe as guests. Sadly, no preview discs were available.

Posh young beardy Jack Whitehall marshals the last edition of the series, an effective mix of styles with the mucky stuff turned down a tad.

It's been a memorable year for Whitehall - gigs on stateside TV, regular panel-show turns back home, his acting debut in the acclaimed campus-com Fresh Meat. And although his set tonight is textbook fare - grumpy Brits, relationship problems, Ibiza - he still hits lots of buttons.

On paper, Josh Widdicombe is similarly cautious with his material (dining out alone, computers), but scores solid laughs. Nice little pop at Argos Extra, too: "They've used the rare definition of extra to mean far far less."

Finally the edgier Shappi Khorsandi puts fresh spins on single parenthood and online dating, and shows her mastery of the unexpected punchline.

Despite the fact he's achieved panel show ubiquity over the last few years, there was until recently a nagging sense that Jack Whitehall's privileged upbringing - the Harrodian School, Nigel Havers as a godfather - rendered him too smug to offer real comic depth. But his 2011 Edinburgh shows were unexpectedly funny and poignant, and he brilliantly nailed the role of posh twerp JP in the recent Channel 4 comedy Fresh Meat. Here he returns to Hammersmith, where he sold out two dates last year, to guest-host the last in the present series of Live at the Apollo. Josh Widdicombe and Shappi Khorsandi are the other genial stand-ups on the bill.

Josh Widdicombe: 'Cattle grids are always a thrill'

At the turn of the year, Josh Widdicombe appeared in this very column as one to watch for 2011.

Having recently come back from the Fringe this week I thought to myself: "Do you know what I need? To watch some more stand-up comedy."

BBC Three has been broadcasting a selection of Fringe programmes. One of these is Edinburgh Comedy Fest, hosted by Jon Richardson, featuring a selection of stand-up comedians and musical comedians performing at the Fringe.

Alongside Richardson were Josh Widdicombe, Neil Delamere, Abandoman, Seann Walsh, Mark Watson, Russell Kane, David O'Doherty, Andrew Lawrence, Ron Vaudey, Jimeoin, Tom Stade, Ed Byrne and Shappi Khorsandi. I don't know about you, but to me that seems a bit too much.

This programme only lasted an hour, and there were 14 different acts. On average they performed less than 5 minutes each. Also, as far as I know, Vaudey isn't even performing at the Fringe. What's more, it was not exactly that diverse. Granted there were comedians from abroad (Canadian, Irish, Iranian), but there was only one woman performing and one non-white person performing - and that was the same person.

In this short format, some comedians did come across better than others. Widdicombe, Delamere and O'Doherty got the laughs, while Vaudey seemed to be a bit flat. I think it would've been a better show if there were more episodes that were of a shorter length. And more variety in terms of style of performers and their backgrounds would be nice, too.

This now long-running Channel 4 panel game has seen some changes over the years. In this series, Jon Richardson has replaced Jason Manford as team captain; the opening round, "What Are You Talking About?", also now only covers the top three most talked about things in Britain as opposed to the original five. The other major change is that the total scores are no longer mentioned, with host Jimmy Carr now simply saying who's won, rather like Mock the Week.

The one major problem I have with 8 Out of 10 Cats is that almost every time there is always one guest who you'd rather not have on the programme. I went through the panel before the show began thinking to myself: "Russell Kane - established, award winning comic and deserves to be on. Josh Widdicombe - a relatively unknown comic who can use this appearance as his big break. Rachel Riley - well, as someone who regularly co-presents Countdown she has experience of quiz formats. Alex Reid - oh, damn!"

However, having said that, I did enjoy the fact that Reid didn't take himself too seriously, taking part in some pretty self-deprecating humour. However, the guest comics, as to be expected, did perform better; Kane's story about a woman he accidentally offended on a train was a particular highlight.