Kate Copstick

Patrick Monahan: Kate Copstick is like an army general

Patrick Monahan likes to talk. A chat with the Show Me The Funny winner about getting back into touring after being watched by millions...

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.

Interview: Tom Green, comedian (Link expired)

Tom Green is in the middle of telling me about his fight with testicular cancer. "I was sure I was going to die."

Interview: Wendy Wason on doing stand-up while pregnant (Link expired)

She's eight-and-a-half months pregnant, but the irrepressible Wendy Wason tells Kate Copstick she has no intentions of putting her feet up just yet.

Interview: Phil Nicol - 'This is where I'm meant to be' (Link expired)

Phil Nichol is a man doing what he loves for its own sake, not for fame, not for money and not for the opportunity to play to tens of thousands of people in a stadium.

Interview: Ruby Wax back on track (Link expired)

Ruby Wax has had a low profile recently as she's been working on a show to help her and others confront their demons, which she's bringing to the Edinburgh Fringe.

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.

Show Me The Funny review: stand-up chronic

Alan Davies and Jimmy Tarbuck realised they were in the presence of a no-hoper but went easy on the poor bloke. However the show's answer to Simon Cowell - comedy critic Kate Copstick lays into the pair like someone trying to make a name for herself. Will this be a hit? Probably...

Kate Copstick: Cheek by jowl

Set to be the Simon Cowell of a comedy X Factor, Kate Copstick has only praise for her fellow judges as she takes us backstage at Show Me The Funny.

A more cynical tv-based e-mail that likes to use glaringly topical references might say an ITV1 show about stand-up comedy that is hosted by Jason Manford and features Alan Davies as a judge is something akin to Fox News asking Rebekah Brooks to host a show about running a morally superior newspaper business, with Rupert Murdoch as judge.

But we're not that e-mail. We like Manford, though he's never really been funny-funny, and Davies redeemed himself a touch by being good in Whites... so we're going to let it slide. In this reality show, 10 wildly different stand-ups have to perform to tough rooms and then get voted out by Davies and the Mr Nasty of the affair, sidekick Kate Copstick. And it is pretty good - but not because anyone is particularly funny. It's actually interesting and unusual to watch comics dying on stage.