Mike Ward

Did you hear the one about the 'ugly' disabled singer?

Comedian Mike Ward's joke about the boy who sang for the pope might not be funny, but is that any reason to fine him $42,000?

Mike Ward uses crowdfunding to cover legal costs

Comedian Mike Ward launched a crowdfunding campaign on Tuesday to cover the legal fees in connection to his litigation against the Human Rights Tribunal. Within hours he received nearly $2,500.

Mike Ward: people are insane & too goddamn sensitive

Controversial Canadian comic Mike Ward doesn't care if you're offended by his material or not. Chances are some of you will be.

Mike Ward fined for violating rights with joke

Canadian comedian Mike Ward has been ordered to pay former child singer Jeremy Gabriel $35,000 for making jokes that violated his rights.

The clutch of new mainstream comedies that have been foisted on us recently haven't exactly had us holding our stomachs with laughter. Just holding them because they make us feel sick, more like.

But The Job Lot is definitely the best of a bad bunch. It has an advantage as the writers have been a bit sneaky and actually included some funny situations and amusing lines, which is cheating a bit don't you think?

The characters are pretty strong, too. Haven't we all met a totally cold, unhelpful so-and-so like Angela (Jo Enright), the last person you would want "helping" you at a jobcentre.

Tonight she threatens to call the police when someone tries to use the office printer! The fun starts when under-pressure boss Trish (Sarah Hadland) receives a tip-off that an inspector is on the way - disguised as a claimant.

Jonathan Creekused to be on every week - and, OK, it was a decent enough show for a Saturday night.

These days it pops up once in a blue moon, as a one-off episode like tonight's (9pm, BBC1), and for reasons I can't quite fathom, it's trumpeted as some kind of major TV event.

All right, maybe I'm being a bit harsh. Maybe my opinion is clouded by the fact Alan Davies gets on my wick.

But packing an episode with guest stars - tonight's include Rik Mayall, Joanna Lumley and Sarah Alexander - and giving this plot more twists and turns than a twisty-turny thing, can't disguise the show's basic weakness.

Namely, that the "body mysteriously vanishing from a locked room" business, though admittedly only one element of this latest case, is kind of tired now.

I was several minutes into my preview copy of My Hero: Miranda Hart on Eric Morecambe (9pm, BBC1) before something significant struck me.

Namely, the fact that, up to this point, there hadn't been a lot of Eric Morecambe in it.

Instead, it begins with Miranda reflecting, with her sister, on her own hit-and-miss beginnings in the comedy world - which, as some old clips confirm, offered no hint of the success that would eventually come her way.

The thing about Morecambe, though, is that he's always been Miranda's inspiration, even though she was only 11 when he died.

So although the show is very much her own personal take on a comedy legend and what he's meant to her, it also sees her travelling around the country on a kind of Eric Morecambe pilgrimage, visiting places where he and partner Ernie Wise performed, chatting with people who knew this great double act and digging out her favourite Morecambe and Wise clips.

I managed to get an exclusive sneak preview of what Jessie J might look like once she's had her head shaved tonight. It's not great, to be honest.

What I did is, I put Jessie's photo into the hugely amusing Bald Booth app on my iPhone, which magically shows you what anyone will look like as a slaphead. And a few seconds later - hey presto! - there she was, smooth as a pickled egg.

Well, almost. The snag is, this ingenious app doesn't actually erase the hair on either side of a person's head, just on top, so Jessie ends up looking more like my Uncle Norman.

I can't imagine that's the look she'll be hoping for tonight. Having said that, you don't catch my Uncle Norman complaining.

As for the other highlights of tonight's marathon, they include Ricky Gervais returning as David Brent, Jack Whitehall going head-to-head with Micky Flanagan in a special MasterChef, Simon Cowell getting married, sort of, and One Direction treating us to their offcial Comic Relief single, Pledge Fifty Quid And You're Allowed To Give Each Of Us A Good Slap. To donate, call 03457 910910.

Graham Norton will be prattling on (or, to be strictly accurate, on and on and on and on and on and on and on...) in a Comic Relief fundraiser tonight on BBC Three[/]. Yep, another one.

Comic Relief's Big Chat With Graham Norton will kick off at 7pm, and unless the whole thing goes tits-up and he develops laryngitis or something, it'll continue into he early hours - by which point, and here's the thing, our host hopes to have smashed the world record for the most questions asked on a TV chat show.

Among his many guests will be Martin Freeman, Sarah Millican and Louis Smith, with the likes of Frank Skinner and Nick Grimshaw doing co-host stints.

Wow, a new comedy about a bomb disposal unit in Afghanistan? Isn't that a bit, y'know, sick?

Well, you'd think so, but I have to say there's nothing in episode one of Bluestone 42 (10pm, BBC Three) thatshould seriously upset anyone. Not unless religious watchdogs take offence at the unit's captain trying to get into the knickers of the new padre (who, I should explain, is played by ex-Hustle star Kelly Adams).

The writers, as you'd hope, have taken lots of advice from people with front-line experience, so it's not as if they’re straying into comedy territory they can't defend - and besides, the show is mostly about the banter between the characters, rather than dealing head-on with the most harrowing part of their job.