Patrick Kielty

Patrick Kielty: There is a lot of pressure on us comics

Patrick Kielty says "Of course, the pressure is on with Stand Up For The Week. This will be a proper review of the week and it's scary for everyone because we can't prep it, rehearse it and polish it."

C4 lines up topical standup show with by Patrick Kielty

Six-part series Stand Up For The Week to air on Friday nights with regular standups including Rich Hall and Jack Whitehall.

Based on an (apparently) successful US model, the UK version of A Comedy Roast sees a parade of utterly uninteresting "celebrities", faux-insulted by a panel of comedians in a kind of This Is Your Life for the Big Brother generation.

Anyway, last night was Sharon Osbourne's turn. Presumably, her casting had more to do with her availability than her suitability; there can be little other explanation. No one, bar no one, needs to hear another word about her, even if it is from the pleasingly snarled lips of Jack Dee.

It's a shame, really, since some of the gags weren't bad at all. Patrick Kielty gave a particularly enjoyable turn. Who knew he could be so vicious? Even Gok Wan, who surely ranks close to Sharon Osbourne in the overexposure stakes, was pretty good. No, the problem isn't the jokes. It's their subject.

Given the level of venom each episode's victims have to tolerate, it seems unlikely that the show would attract anyone but the desperate or the egotistical. Both of which, frankly, I could do without.

In a merciless variation on a tribute show, a host of comedians and celebrities line up to lampoon Sharon Osbourne. At the start, the host Jimmy Carr compares her to the Queen. "Her children are dysfunctional. Her husband is incoherent and nobody is really sure what she does." Thereafter, the likes of Alan Carr, Ronni Ancona and Louis Walsh take to the podium and let rip about her age, her plastic surgery, her husband, her incontinent dogs, her foul mouth and her fashion mistakes, while she sits at a table and cackles loudly. The highlights of the evening are Ancona reading extracts from Osbourne's new novel, Revenge, and Patrick Kielty risking his life to mock her parenting skills. "What a delightful evening it's been," says a glum Jack Dee.

A comedy roast is a prolonged mickey-take of someone while that someone is still in the room to enjoy the jokes, but from the very first of Jimmy Carr's opening remarks it's clear Sharon Osbourne has her work cut out. The jokes are savage and the language is terrible, as Patrick Kielty, Alan Carr and Jack Dee rip into the former X Factor judge's parenting skills and plastic surgery.

Like a best man speech for a celebrity, the roast - where a famous guest of honour is mercilessly insulted by other celebs - is a long-standing ­tradition in the US. Channel 4 has imported the concept and tonight it's the turn of Sharon Osbourne - a human equivalent of an open goal.

Hosted by Jimmy Carr, this is the funniest and also the rudest hour of TV all week, with Jack Dee, Patrick Kielty, Gok Wan, Alan Carr, Louis Walsh, Ronni Ancona, Keith Lemon and Elton John paying acid-tongued tribute to Sharon's extensive plastic surgery, mothering skills and propensity for sending dog poo to her enemies.

And this put-down from Patrick Kielty shows that nothing is too near to the knuckle. "It's fair to say that Ozzy has never strayed," he quips. "He did once make a dash for freedom but after Sharon cut the brakes on the quad bike, he's now learned his lesson..."

For this two-hour bonanza in aid of Great Ormond Street Hospital Children's Charity, Channel 4 recently assembled 24 of Britain's best comedians to perform in front of a live audience at the O2 arena in London. So - deep breath - Jack Dee, Andy Parsons, David Mitchell, Fonejacker, Jack Whitehall, Jo Brand, James Corden, Jason Manford, John Bishop, Kevin Bridges, Kevin Eldon, Lee Evans, Mark Watson, Michael McIntyre, Noel Fielding, Patrick Kielty, Rich Hall, Rob Brydon, Ruth Jones, Sean Lock, Catherine Tate and Shappi Khorsandi take turns on stage to make it the biggest live stand-up show in British history. If that's not enough for you, Alan Carr and Bill Bailey perform with Stomp and Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant and Johnny Depp provide additional sketches.

This stand-up comedy show at the O2 Arena in London features a barnstorming roll-call of British comedians all stepping up to the mic in aid of Great Ormond Street Hospital Children's Charity. The bill includes Alan Carr, Bill Bailey, Catherine Tate, David Mitchell, The Fonejacker, Jack Dee, Jo Brand, Lee Evans, Michael McIntyre, Noel Fielding, Patrick Kielty, Rich Hall, Rob Brydon and Shappi Khorsandi. If you can't find somebody in that list who makes you laugh, it's possible that you have, indeed, had all your funny bones surgically removed.

Channel 4 Comedy Gala at the O2 Arena, London SE10

It was billed as "the biggest live stand-up show in UK history". But although this show in aid of the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children featured 30-odd comics performing to 15,000 people, with more on video clips, in many ways it conformed to the usual rules of the charity gala. Some acts reminded you why they are stars (Lee Evans, Michael McIntyre, Jack Dee). Some were good enough to win a lot of new fans (Mark Watson, Kevin Bridges, Patrick Kielty, John Bishop, Rich Hall, Sean Lock). Some did their thing and did it well (Noel Fielding, Jo Brand). Barely anyone died a death. And, though the O2's 11pm curfew forestalled the usual overrun, cor, did Evans, the headliner, strike a chord when he imagined what we were thinking: "Pleeeeease, finish!"

Comedy stars saddle up for charity ride

Comics David Walliams, Miranda Hart, Russell Howard, Jimmy Carr and Patrick Kielty, plus presenters Fearne Cotton and Davina McCall are to cycle the length of Britain in a bid to raise £1m for Sport Relief.