Michael McIntyre

Opinion: mainstream v alternative - is the gap closing?

We live in interesting times for comedy. I never thought I'd see Sara Pascoe on The Graham Norton Show. Maybe the gap is closing between what we describe as alternative and what we describe as mainstream. Maybe one of the legacies of Comedy Vehicle is that it did attract comedy fans to more cerebral notions of the nature of comedy. Sadly not enough for BBC2's beancounters.

C4 Comedy Gala, review

Rattling through a conveyor belt of more than twenty comedians, this marathon event had one-liners flying so thick and fast it started to become exhausting, says Bruce Dessau.

Comics with spectacular ha-ha homes

There are turrets and timbers, thatched roofs, private moorings and even an island. One home even has a secret garage, another boasts a 400-year-old walled garden. Yes, the titans of the comedy world have done rather nicely out of making people laugh.

Why do some comics make it big and not others?

There are all sorts of comedians I thought would make it but for some reason or other didn't. I tipped Marc Wootton for stardom in the Evening Standard so often it started to become embarrassing. People probably thought we must be related. I also think Boothby Graffoe could have been a mainstream star. Even Addy Van Der Borgh could have been a Saturday night shiny-floored clown. But for some reason none of these people made it as big as I expected. There is still time I guess. Maybe not enough time to get to the O2 this Friday, but there is always next year.

More live wittering to look forward to as McIntyre continues to flog his variety show, this week roping in Peter Jones from Dragons' Den to play his Send To All game, in which the comedian sends a text to Jones's entire contacts book to reap hilarious results. Elsewhere, there's "extreme flamenco" from fusion dance troupe Los Vivancos, music from Rod Stewart and James Morrison, pranks on members of the public and standup from Romesh Ranganathan.

Michael McIntyre interview

Michael McIntyre on his wealth, his waistline and life after hitting the big 4-0.

Michael McIntyre's Big Show sees the popular comedian oversee just under an hours' worth of entertainment which is all watched live by a packed audience in a theatre. I does seem as if this is the vehicle that McIntyre has been given instead of a second series of his forgotten chat show but he is definitely in his element presenting stand-up comedy in front of an audience. But one segment of McIntyre's chat show that has been retained is 'Send to All' in which the comic sends an amusing text to the entire address book one unsuspecting audience member. On this new show that audience member is a celebrity with Geri Horner assuming the role of the person who had a text sent on her phone to everyone she knew asking them if it would be OK to massage them. Definitely the funniest moment of the episode came from McIntyre's revelation of some of the responses Geri had received especially those from her mother and her agent. The other big draw of the show was 'The Secret Star' portion in which McIntyre tricked a Welsh hairdresser to think she was working on the show only to surprise her with the fact that she'd be on the show herself. The surprising the audience member stunt has been done on almost every Saturday night show before but what made this different was that the Secret Star then got to duet with Michael Ball in what I must say was a very impressive performance. Although these two segments and McIntyre's links were entertaining stuff not everything about The Big Show worked that well. A performance from Tinie Tempah just felt out of place whilst I personally didn't think the introduction of an acrobatics troupe worked particularly well either. But my main complaint about the show is its theatre setting as it made everything feel a little bit static and stuffy. I think that if the Big Show had been in a TV studio, and taped live, then it would have a bit more excitement to it and would've even be able to rival Ant and Dec. I don't want to knock BBC One as Michael McIntyre's Big Show is definitely a step in the right direction as far as Saturday night entertainment is concerned. I just think these shows need to get out of the theatre and into the studio where everything feels a little bit more chaotic and let's be a honest a little bit more fun.

Review: Michael McIntyre's Big Show, BBC1, episode 2

I think I preferred him as a chat show host where there was more scope to be a comedian, less scope to be an all-round family entertainer.

Michael McIntyre's Big Show review

I laughed several times. Truth be told, in terms of entertainment per minute it put an average episode of Britain's Got Talent to shame.