Ken Livingstone

Spitting Image victims on being lampooned

As the satirical puppets return, Edwina Currie, Neil Kinnock and Ken Livingstone discuss their portrayal in the original.

This must be a series first - a diary written by someone when they were 21. A good excuse is proffered, though, for this programme's subject - Ken Livingstone - only ever kept the one diary. This occurred in 1966 when he and a friend set out to hitch across the Sahara. Oh, the optimism of youth!

When they arrived in Africa it soon became evident that civil wars and hatred of the British meant that they were going to have to take a different route. I would have been happy to listen to Ken - without interruptions from host Rufus Hound - simply reading from his diary, which is dry in wit and full of fantastic tales.

From a near-death experience when Livingstone did finally get to the desert to sharing a hotel room with an ostrich he named Horace, this is Ken as you've never encountered him before.

Eddie Izzard: My week with Ken Livingstone

I am proud to have spent the week with Ken Livingstone on his campaign to be elected Mayor of London on 3 May, getting the message out there to Londoners about Ken's Fare Deal.

Live comedy in pictures - autumn round-up

Photos from around the circuit. Including Pappy's Christmas special, Dr Brown assaulting an audience member, Ken Livingstone laughing at Rich Hall, Patrick Monahan crowdsurfing and much more...

Eddie Izzard London mayoralty bid hinted at

Former mayor of London Ken Livingstone has hinted at a bid by elder comedy statesman Eddie Izzard to take on the title.

At its best, Would I Lie to You? (or, endearingly, WILTY for short) has a clever way of making us genuinely torn about whether the tales the panellists tell are bizarre truths or rank fibs. Increasingly, guests use the devious double bluff - stumbling over their story or adding details that sound absurd, when it really happened. I won't say who tries that ruse tonight as it would spoil the fun, but I will say that for some reason the tall stories are a bit more guessable than usual. No matter, the show is still enjoyable, with stand-up comedian Reginald D Hunter riffing nicely on the idea that the "D" in his name stands for "Delicious", while Ken Livingstone talks authoritatively about a frog he claims to have bred that had a "prehensile", ie grabby, part of its body that you really wouldn't expect to be grabby. The normally unstoppable David Mitchell is oddly subdued, until a contretemps with Lee Mack about throwing (or possibly not) a sausage roll off Blackpool Tower gets him riled. But did Mitchell have a bell he used to ring as a child when he wanted something? And was Stephen Mangan in a prog-rock band with mystery guest Gordon, or is he in fact Mitchell's local pet-shop owner?

There are a lot of food-based fibs in tonight's breezy show. There's Fern Britton's tea, Lee Mack with his sausage rolls, Stephen Mangan talking about a Mini-Cooper full of sweets and American stand-up Reginald D Hunter, who claims that the D in his name stands for 'Delicious'. Personally, I think it's more likely to stand for 'Deadpan' - this guy's poker face is better than Lady Gaga's.

Also on tonight's show, Ken Livingstone says the word "anus" a lot. Honestly. Host Rob Brydon and team captain David Mitchell look suitably shocked.

New series of the topical quiz show - that's so hot C4 would only send us a preview disc to get here on Monday. Presumably because it is so topical it is filmed after it's shown. It's funnier than it has any real right to be, because of Jimmy Carr's well crafted one-liners, Jason Manford's likeable nature and Sean Lock's occasional bursts of genius. The guests tonight are the posh 12-year-old comic Jack Whitehall, who did a nice line in flirting with Ken Livingstone last time he was on and Johnny Vegas, who we saw trawling around a north London bookshop last week looking rather svelte.