Kerry Godliman

The cast of Derek on the special, Gervais & TV kindness

Is it really the end for the Channel 4 comedy? Kerry Godliman, Holli Dempsey and Brett Goldstein are all keen to return to Broad Hill Care Home in the future...

Kerry's List, the second series of Kerry Godliman's affable Radio 4 comedy, uses an outside production house [rather than the BBC], and I'm glad to hear it. Godliman's funniness is in her and her everyday life; it would be awful if she were made to be proper. Last week, her impression of Jamie Oliver ("Kick it in the nuts with a bag of turmeric!") made me really laugh; as did her ranting about wanting to have a mad house party to her husband, when he just wanted her to pass him a spanner so he could mend the washing machine.

Each show is based around Godliman's to-do list for the week, which might include things such as "organise photos, sharpen pencils, move house... Superglue, catflap, grout". These lists are not only familiar to all of us, they provide a structure to each show; a neat structure, but flexible enough to include flashbacks and phone-calls and scenes with short-sighted opticians as well as a bit of Godliman's stand-up. She has some great lines ("Isn't 'we need more space' just one of those things people say when they can't be arsed to tidy up?") and her on-air character doesn't feel too far away from her real character, which gives the whole show a natural, naturally funny air. I like it a lot.

Kerry Godliman Q&A

In-demand comedian and actor Kerry Godliman returns to the Edinburgh Fringe with her new stand-up show, Face Time. The star of Channel 4's Derek gives Giggle Beats some face time, an insight into her life as a performer, working with Ricky Gervais, and her own struggles with technology.

Edinburgh Fringe preview: Kerry Godliman

Godliman tells jokes that everyone can relate to, but they are much more than just trite observations.

There's the obvious danger that Alan Davies's new show could quickly descend into a swaggering knob-measuring contest, featuring as it does four celebrities talking about whatever they want to around a big table in front of a studio audience, until an appropriate show title presents itself. And indeed, the anecdotes come thick and fast in this first instalment, from Noel Fielding, Kerry Godliman, Andrew Maxwell and Jon Ronson. However, it's actually rather charming, Ronson's mistaken identity story in particular.

Radio Times review

If you've ever wondered what it'd be like going for a pint with Noel Fielding, Jon Ronson, Kerry Godliman and Andrew Maxwell (I know I have), here's a chance to find out.

With no agenda, no theme and a trickle of booze, this blank-canvas chat show aims to re-create the informal intimacy of a pub conversation, and it works really well.

Alan gives his guests plenty of room to waffle, and Noel Fielding is excellent value as usual; particularly with the story about how he disappeared on tour, and was found the following day working in a vintage boutique in Brighton.

Back at the O2 for the fifth year on the trot, the country's finest gag merchants congregate to shake a tin in aid of Great Ormond Street Hospital's prospective new operating theatre. Among the assembled funny people here are Lee Evans, Jack Dee, Alan Carr, Paddy McGuinness, Warwick Davis and Derek's Kerry Godliman. It's three hours long, but worth keeping half an eye on the commercial breaks, traditionally a place for Alan Carr to pop up with some lightly mirthful advert hijacks.

News: Balham comedy festival line-up announced

The 2014 Balham Comedy Festival, running from July 11-19, has announced its line-up. Among the names confirmed are Susan Calman, Paul Daniels, Robert Newman, Phill Jupitus, Reginald D. Hunter, Tim Vine, Stephen K Amos, Marcus Brigstocke, Milton Jones, Shappi Khorsandi, Mark Steel, Richard Herring, Jeremy Hardy, Susan Calman, Kevin Day, Gary Delaney, Kerry Godliman, Tony Law, and Fred MacAulay with more performers to be announced.

Derek is a so-called comedy about a care home worker with learning difficulties. This self-indulgent vanity project attempts to be movingly bittersweet but is instead mawkish and embarrassing. Most of this penultimate episode was dedicated to a dead dog, while Gervais's eponymous character cried, gurned and mugged for the camera. As deceased pets go, it was no Norwegian Blue parrot.

The Office was a work of comic genius but in the decade since, Gervais's output has been on a downward curve. Derek is the trough. It borrows devices from The Office (the mockumentary format, the Tim 'n' Dawn-style romance to lend it heart) but uses them ham-fistedly. Gervais's patronising central performance is based on crudely drawn mannerisms and fortune-cookie clichés. Do we really need a multimillionaire to don a cardigan, cock his head to one side and tell us, "Be nice to animals" or "Kindness is magic"? The cast, especially the excellent Kerry Godliman, do their best with a clumsy script, but the only three-dimensional character was that dead dog.

The ​Kerry Godliman three minute interview

Kerry Godliman is stand-up, writer and actor, currently starring alongside Ricky Gervais in Derek on Channel 4. Martin Walker grabbed two minutes face time to talk Channel 4, Radio 4 and the Edinburgh Fringe.