Peter Kay

Jason Manford: How Peter Kay got me into university

With a black eye and half his teeth missing, a 17-year-old Jason Manford took his first tentative steps to a career in comedy at the Buzz Club in Chorlton - still bearing the scars from a vicious mugging in Moss Side.

Tonight's line-up of guests is terrific: the ridiculously hunky Hugh Jackman, the sainted Stephen Fry and the peerless Peter Kay. So make the most of them, Jonathan, get them all out at once, chatting together on the sofa.

That's what makes Graham Norton's show such fun; rather than having painful or strained little individual interviews, he just flings the guests together and watches as something wonderful emerges. Come on, who wants to see Fry flirt with Jackman? I do, I do.

Jackman, an action hero and a highly accomplished song-and-dance man, is in town to plug his new film, Real Steel, a shiny, butch-looking thing about boxing and robots. Fry is on the show just to be himself while Kay, whose staggeringly successful comedy career spawned a similarly staggeringly successful brace of jokey autobiographies, is here to talk about his new book.

Drawing a respectable 4.3 million viewers in its first episode, Jonathan Ross's new show has precisely the same format as his old one, minus the Four Poofs and a Piano. You can hardly blame ITV for not tinkering too much, though: even when Ross was in the grips of "Sachsgate", his show managed to attract decent audiences. Tonight the loud-mouthed presenter welcomes Stephen Fry, comedian Peter Kay and Australian actor Hugh Jackman, who'll be discussing his new big-budget sci-fi movie, Real Steel.

The Comedy Lab has been the springboard for shows like Modern Toss, as well as showing original material by everyone from Ricky Gervais to Peter Kay. Tonight, Anna & Katy (Anna Crilly and Katy Wix) present a one-off sketch show, ploughing such wilfully peculiar furrows as a German hospital soap opera, featuring a cameo from primetime comedy type Lee Mack; a deeply awkward village prize-giving event; and a pair of Liverpudlian teenagers obsessed with measuring things. Like most oddball comedy, that all sounds rubbish on paper, but it's actually been very nicely observed and deftly executed.

Peter Kay's doppelganger wanted for fraud

A struggling comedian-turned-con-artist who pretended to be Peter Kay's brother has reached the top of the UK's most wanted fraudsters list.

The Liverpudlian returns for a second series of his show, mixing stand-up, sketches and interviews, covering a different subject affecting the British every week.

In this week's episode, Bishop covered the subjects of "Music and Fashion". Bishop is rather Peter Kay-esque in his methods. Quite a lot of his humour is nostalgic, looking back at things from when he was young, such as his routine about going into Woolworth's and buying a record.

This is also evident during his interview section which featured among other things people talking about records they have brought and their guilty pleasures. One pair of identical twins admitted buying a record by The Smurfs (speaking of which, now that The Smurfs have been made into a 3D film, what's Mark Kermode going to compare them unfavourably too?).

For me, the best parts of the show were the sketches. There were two sketches in this week's episode, one covering the time Bishop went to see U2 during their "Make Poverty History" page, and what was the perfect way to get back at them; and other being about Bishop's confusion about the phrase "kiss vigorously" when he was filming Skins alongside Ronni Ancona.

These bits were simply brilliant. The images depicted were hilarious, as were the gags. When you think that the sketch had ended, it didn't, getting even better as it went along.

A very enjoyable and funny programme. Like Peter Kay, but not so full of himself.

Weekender: Barbara Nice, comedian, 57

'I was discovered by Peter Kay. He saw me in Manchester, rang me and asked me to play Holy Mary in Phoenix Nights'.

SuBo accepts special invite to Peter Kay's Glasgow gig

Comic Relief duo Peter Kay and Susan Boyle will reunite once again at the SECC at Kay's Tour That Doesn't Tour Tour.

Peter Kay named Greatest British Comedian in poll

Peter Kay has been voted the Greatest British Comedian in a national study to celebrate 250 years of Great British Spirit.

Kay & Boyle's Comic Relief single released worldwide

Peter Kay and Susan Boyle's hilarious Comic Relief spoof single could be set for worldwide success, after TV bosses were bombarded with calls from foreign fans desperate to get their hands on the track.