Rhod Gilbert

When it flies, stand-up comedy is an exhilarating experience, and this - the first of a new series of Live at the Apollo - is a spectacularly good example of the genre. It is introduced by Michael McIntyre, who minces around the stage exploding with energy ('When I smile,' he asks, 'do I look like a fat Chinese man?' Yes, Michael, you know you do). He is followed by Rich Hall, who describes how an Englishman loses his temper ('I shall write a letter!') and how he met the Queen at Buckingham Palace. And it ends with an insane performance by a Welshman, Rhod Gilbert, who has a high-octane nervous breakdown trying to buy a duvet. If even a tiny part of you enjoys stand-up, you don't want to miss this.

David Chater, The Times, 28th November 2008

Radio Head: 4 Stands Up

This season I must protest about 4 Stands Up, a show in which Radio 4 has selected, apparently at random, some stand-up comedians and just wheeled them out. You can tell things are bad when the announcer gives you, "4 Stands Up, compered by the Welsh comedian Rhod Gilbert". That's all you've got, a postcode? He has nothing else going for him? He's never won, or done, anything? He has impinged upon our consciousness in no way? Can't you even call him a newcomer? I don't even know how bad the jokes were, because it was audience-participation heavy and they hadn't even mic-ed the audience! All I could hear was a kind of scuffle.

Zoe Williams, The Guardian, 5th November 2008

Variety - in the old-fashioned sense of different acts operating coming on and doing different things - makes a comeback on Radio 4's new four-part drive-time show.

No preview disc was available, so all we know going in is that the host is the Welsh comic Rhod Gilbert, a frequent voice on radio and face on TV.

The show itself consists of an opening act from a young up-and-comer (not Rhod Gilbert, somebody else), a performance by a double act, a sketch, or a musical number, and then on comes the headliner, a 'name' act who, unfortunately at this moment in time and for obvious reasons, cannot be named.

Chris Campling, The Times, 30th October 2008