Mark G Smith

Sun takes down 'vile' video of Ted Robbins' collapse

Publisher removes clip of onstage cardiac arrest from its website after star's sister describes it as 'beyond belief'.

This week's best Edinburgh comedy

Previews of Tig Notaro, Pat Cahill and Mark Smith.

Fringe comedy debut: Mark Smith

A Q&A with the comedian who appears for the first time at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2013.

10 minutes with... Dregs

Max Dickins was a Sony-nominated presenter for Absolute Radio - until he got sick of saying boring stuff and packed it in. Mark Smith was a So You Think You're Funny finalist in 2009 and has recently appeared on Russell Howard's Good News.

10 questions with The Comedy Zone

If you want to see the stand-up stars of the future, head to The Comedy Zone at this year's Edinburgh Fringe. As always, it features four up-and-coming comics - and this year, those talented types are Ahir Shah, Hayley Ellis, Mark Smith and Kieran Boyd. And they've been kind enough to answer our 10 Quick Questions...

There was always a risk in Charlie Brooker marrying a celebrity, particularly one at the lower, ITV2 end of television: that it would make him less willing to slag celebrities off.

The fact that he has pulled out of his weekly television column is certainly a bad sign.

The good news, however, is that Brooker is still making Screenwipe, in which he rants from a dark room that looks like it might smell vaguely of socks and takeaway pizza.

It's poking fun at television in the same way that Harry Hill does, except that Brooker is a bad, angry version of Harry; he's Harry with a hangover.

As usual, Brooker has chosen his targets well and this year he homes in on the extraordinary The Only Way is Essex, which, despite having watched it several times, I have still not been able to work out. What is it? Spoof? Reality show? If it's scripted, then I bow down to the scriptwriter, because he or she is a genius; if it's unscripted, then I despair at the empty ignorance and pointlessness of modern culture. It's just the kind of programme that Brooker loves laying into.

Another programme Brooker takes a look at this year is Sherlock, which promised so much but did the deeply illogical thing of changing Sherlock's character into an annoying, rude, know-it-all git, when anyone who has read the books knows that Holmes, despite being of infinitely superior intellect, was always polite to his inferiors (unless they were baddies).

Seeing Brooker bare his fangs and shake his fist over these programmes is always fun but there's a comforting element to this programme, too - that however nakedly hate-filled it gets, it doesn't matter, because it's obvious the hate comes from a good place: the desire for better television.

Frankie Boyle's Tramadol Nights review

Mark Smith reckons the Glasgow comedian should concentrate on the jokes, not the shocks.

I need to tell you about the brilliance of the new series of Harry And Paul. In fact, within seconds of it starting I was screeching like a car alarm at three in the morning, mostly at the scabrous spoof of Dragon's Den and the traffic warden send-up, Parking Pataweyo, which wobbled deliciously close to being unacceptable.

There was one odd thing about the show though, and that was Enfield's obsession with the top and bottom of society, with swaggering chavs and gibbering toffs. Brilliant though it all was, maybe now that Enfield is all grey and round and pretty much Britain's honorary professor of sketch shows, he could have more of a pop at the modern middle classes as well as the chavs and poshies. There's certainly plenty to laugh at.

Mongrels, BBC Three, Tuesdays

Mark Smith puts down the new puppet comedy.