Michael McIntyre

Michael McIntyre: I'm not going to crack America

"I'm not going to crack America. I'm staying, sorry. It's taken me long enough to sort things out here and I don't want to start again somewhere else."

Michael McIntyre: Hello Wembley!, BBC One, preview

Michael Hogan's analyses the appeal of stand-up comedian Michael McIntyre.

Glaswegian comedian Frankie Boyle's controversial interjections on Mock The Week turned that show into must-see TV for many, and his loss made the show immediately less infamous. There's certainly a place for Boyle's brand of "shock comedy" on network television, particularly in a landscape currently dominated by family-friendly comics like Michael McIntyre, Rhod Gilbert and John Bishop. Sadly, Frankie Boyle's Tramadol Nights is a horrendous mess, on the evidence of its first episode.

It uses a tried-and-trusted format: stand-up comedy interspersed with sketches. What's unfortunate is that (a) Boyle's stand-up routines are taken directly from his recent tour, meaning many fans will have heard the jokes before, and (b) the sketches were idiotic attempts at shocking people that dragged on past their natural end points. The first sketch, running with the idea that David Hasselhoff's character in Knight Rider was mentally ill, was perhaps the worst offender - a target 25 years out of date, a stupid idea you'd expect from a schoolboy, producing a sketch that seemed to last forever. Other sketches included candid camera spoof "Hide Me, I've Killed A Kid", an animated "George Michael's Highway Code" (topical?) and a bizarre parody of The Green Mile where the black character's supernatural power came from... raping people?

Tramadol Nights was objectionable in a way it wasn't aiming for; a show with zero intelligence behind it. I could scarcely believe Frankie Boyle's the bearded ringmaster of this tripe, as the prospect of a Channel 4 comedy from him was a delicious prospect up until last night. Too much of its sketches were pale excuses for Boyle to visually enact jokes that work better in the minds of an audience being told them verbally. At the very least, someone should have reminded Boyle that a sketch works best if it's less than two-minutes long, not twice that.

The sole positive: you don't need to buy Frankie Boyle's DVD as a stocking filler this Christmas, because it seems likely all of its material will be served up here each week.

Michael McIntyre: 'Some critics annoy me'

Michael McIntyre has admitted that he is annoyed by some critics of his work.

A repeat of C4's live comedy extravaganza from London's 02 Arena earlier this year in which 23 of our funniest people (and Michael McIntyre) competed to win our laughs in aid of Great Ormond Street Children's Charity. Take your pick from Alan Carr, Noel Fielding, Catherine Tate, Bill Bailey, Mitchell & Webb, Jack Dee, Jack Whitehall, Kevin Eldon, Lee Evans, Rob Brydon, Sean Lock, Jo Brand, Jason Manford, Fonejacker, Andy Parsons and Shappi Khorsandi. Phew.

Peter Kay live review

There are no truly classic moments until the unashamedly spectacular musical finale in which Kay lives out his rock fantasies. This was undoubtedly a hugely entertaining event, but for sheer mainstream wall-to-wall laughs Michael McIntyre has the edge for a London audience.

Interview with Michael McIntyre

Celia Walden meets the comic who looks more like a private school sixth former.

Video: Michael McIntyre describes his tricky start

Michael McIntyre admits to BBC Breakfast that his early career wasn't quite as fruitful.

Michael McIntyre interview

He appears in front of hundreds of thousands of fans every year, tops the bestseller charts and hosts his own primetime TV show. But Michael McIntyre, who earns millions for making people laugh, thinks he's a loser.

Video - McIntyre: Book laughs come from 'being a loser'

Michael McIntyre says most of the funny stories in his autobiography come from how used to be a "loser" who dressed badly, couldn't get girls and didn't have many friends.

The comedian also says parts of the book, like his mum's affair and how he once bought drugs for a friend, were laughably sensationalised by the tabloids.