Marcus Brigstocke

This week there was the last of two special episodes on BBC Radio 4 that were recorded in India (a documentary about the India episodes is on Radio 4 at 11.30 on Monday 2nd April), featuring regulars Nicholas Parsons and Paul Merton, English comedian Marcus Brigstocke, and Indian comedians Cyrus Broacha and Anuvab Pal. Topics for discussion included "It's just not cricket" and "Mumbai traffic".

The main difference between this and the normal British edition is that the Indians appear to be much more competitive. Although there are those who will like the faster-paced action, there are those, including myself, that feel it disturbs the flow too much with so many challenges. Still, it makes for an interesting change...

Forty-five years after its invention, Just a Minute is taking its singular mix of the clever and the silly to India for two shows. The location, the Mumbai Comedy Store, changed the whole feel of the programme. Over here, it tends to take place in halls, where the laughter echoes; in the Comedy Store, the audience sounded like it was almost on top of the performers (Paul Merton and Marcus Brigstocke plus domestic talent Anuvab Pal and Cyrus Broacha), in what felt like a bearpit.

The Indians, in a sense, are ahead of us. Just a Minute took off there when it was on the BBC World Service, and it's played by young Indian professionals at "JaM sessions". This gave Pal and Broacha a leg-up as far as the rules were concerned, though neither could quite get the hang of the "repetition" bit.

The subjects were well chosen - they included "cultural exchanges" and "colonial India" - which elicited the following from Pal: "General Malcolm Muggeridge of the 1st Jaipur Infantry liked to wear his breeches and go for deep swims." There followed a long, smutty riff from the assembled cast about what "deep swims" might be a euphemism for - suggesting that the cultural divide between ourselves and our former subjects isn't very wide at all.

Altitude comedy festival: Bringing humour to the Alps

Next week, Tim Clark, from comedy news website Such Small Portions, is heading off to one of the most unique comedy festivals in the world. That festival is Altitude - a five-day laughterfest that takes place in the Austrian Alps. Tim explains what Altitude's all about - and talks to its founders, comedians Marcus Brigstocke and Andrew Maxwell.

This comedy panel show offers a fresh twist by having its contestants ask each other questions. Dave Lamb, now best known as the voice of Come Dine with Me[/i], acts as the show's "fact checker" in case of disputes. But it's all made rather non-combative by seating the panel in laid-back armchairs. After a pilot last May, it's now launching as a series, with Graham Norton, Sandi Toksvig and Marcus Brigstocke as guests and Armstrong as head prefect.

This week the BBC attempted to re-launch Radio 4 chat show I've Never Seen Star Wars, where guests try out things they've never done before, for television. Why they needed to do so I don't know.

The TV version was first broadcast in 2009 on BBC Four with the host of the original radio version, Marcus Brigstocke, still hosting it. This new "pilot" was hosted by Jo Brand, and I do have to say that this edition does look better than the original series. The set is much crisper and cleaner, and they kept the original theme tune from the radio series rather the altered version from the first TV series. However, they still kept the annoying musical inserts between each item. They aren't needed and they end up just get up your nose.

The guest for this new edition was Stephen Fry. In this edition his first time experiences were his first ear piercing (an experience which gave a score of 8 out of 10), putting together flat-pack furniture (1 out of 10), watching Only Fools and Horses (9.5 out of 10) and boxing (10 out of 10). My favourite section was the furniture sequence, during which he sweat so profusely his skin looked like a waterfall. He looked like Lee Evans in the middle of a gig.

I've Never Seen Star Wars was an enjoyable show, but I still don't understand why they needed to replace Brigstocke with Brand. She was a decent enough host; but so is Brigstocke and I don't think there was any need for such a change...

I've Never Seen Star Wars: 2011 special - review

A decent enough Christmas treat - and it's good to see this very versatile format has arrived in the mainstream. But it's slightly disconcerting to see it reformatted so drastically, and it's puzzling to consider why Jo Brand got the job ahead of Marcus Brigstocke.

This amusing long-running Radio 4 show - which invites celebrity guests to try activities completely new to them - first arrived on television back in 2009, presented by its radio host Marcus Brigstocke. Now, at the end of 2011, it returns with an overhaul. Jo Brand is installed in the presenter's chair and her first guest is Stephen Fry. He, rather gallantly, agrees to have his ear pierced, take a boxing lesson, watch his very first episode of Only Fools and Horses and attempt to assemble flat-packed furniture.

Marcus Brigstocke's upper-class student twit has been on Radio 4 for nearly a decade now. Things have changed over the years since he first arrived on air, though. Gone are the days of ex-public school idiot Giles Wemmbley Hogg (two ms, two gs) causing chaos around the world, with him now running his own travel agency GWH Travvel (mix up at the printers) in his native Budleigh Salterton.

The first episode of the fifth series sees Giles running for mayor in an election manipulated by American entrepreneur Donald Crump (I wonder who that could be a reference to) who plans to destroy the town and turn it into a seven star resort. Despite thinly-veiled satire, Giles is a great character. His idiocy appears to know no bounds, from being unable to put on his Velcro strapped shoes, or selling his car because he couldn't get around a bollard in a car park.

The situations depicted are also highly amusing. The opening scene takes place on the local golf course, which, due to budget cuts, is being shared by the TA, resulting in spontaneous appearances of new bunkers. It seems that the show has won the right to return.

If you've not encountered Giles Wemmbley Hogg in any of his previous incarnations on Radio 4 the best introduction is to say that this creation of Marcus Brigstocke is the closest thing we have to a modern version of The Goons. Each episode is driven by a particular situation at the start, which rapidly falls off down the left-field surreal slide. It's a bit hit and miss but still worth a listen.

Marcus Brigstocke: "I used to be Giles Wemmbley Hogg"

The comedian talks about his globetrotting comic creation and why he's taking time out from ranting.