Rich Hall

Dylan Moran, Tony Law for Larmer Tree Festival

Dylan Moran is set to headline the Larmer Tree Festival alongside Alistair McGowan, Rich Hall and Tony Law.

Rich Hall wins Barry award

London-based American standup snaffles top prize at Melbourne international comedy festival, with Luke McGregor named best newcomer.

Rich Hall - review

The best thing about comedy, says Rich Hall, the quality that makes it worth defending, is that it doesn't do any harm. That's not a high mast to pin your colours to, and sure enough, Hall isn't doing any stretching tonight.

Live comedy in pictures - autumn round-up

Photos from around the circuit. Including Pappy's Christmas special, Dr Brown assaulting an audience member, Ken Livingstone laughing at Rich Hall, Patrick Monahan crowdsurfing and much more...

In a rare, filth-free, you-can-watch-it-with-your-granny episode (and so much better for it), laconic US comic Rich Hall immediately gets the Apollo audience on his side as he points out that British people are so much funnier than his countryfolk. Then a very game audience member called Peter comes on stage as Hall's "human shield" to sing a creditable version of John Denver's "Take Me Home, Country Roads".

Good-natured and funny Mark Watson regales us with the perils of shopping for a single carrot, and Andrew Maxwell ends the show with a clever routine about a "cockney mosque" with a "geezer minaret".

Yes, it's yet another talking heads/clips show but it does give us an opportunity to relive some cracking stand-up routines - last week's gave us Eddie Izzard covered in make-up and looking dazzling as he delivered his super skit about school-level French from his 1990s Dress To Kill show. This time, Bill Hicks rightly gets a look-in, as does Lee Evans's ingeniously physical Bohemian Rhapsody routine. Jonathan Ross, Micky Flanagan and Rich Hall are among those sharing their reverence.

"A roast is where we show someone how much we love them by constantly ridiculing them. It's a bit like a marriage," says host Jimmy Carr in one of the funnier lines from tonight's "tribute" to Barbara Windsor.

For reasons known only to herself, the 73-year-old Carry On actress agreed to sit through this hour of public humiliation at the hands of comedians such as Alan Carr, Patrick Kielty and Rich Hall.

Although some of the observations are affectionate, they're mostly cruel jokes about her age and sexual history. Windsor gets her own back with a scathing riposte at the end, but otherwise it's pretty uncomfortable viewing.

There comedy roasts are a curious beast but tonight's ribbing of Barbara Windsor is downright uncomfortable.

Most of the gags are about her age, the number of lovers she's had and her criminal connections. The problem is the line-up. While Bernard Cribbins and Cheryl Fergison have earned their place here, the same can't be said for Patrick Kielty, a regular fixture usually sniggering childishly at his own gags.

Comedian Sean Lock looks like a body double for EastEnders' Billy Mitchell and as for Rich Hall - as Babs puts it herself: "I don't know who you are."

The former Queen of the Vic does her best to sit gamely through this, muttering, "Ooh, you gotta larf," but the only bit that feels affectionate is a sketch from her former EastEnders co-stars about how much they're missing her. Or not.

"A roast is where we show someone how much we love them by constantly ridiculing them. It's a bit like a marriage," says host Jimmy Carr in one of the funnier lines from tonight's "tribute" to Barbara Windsor. For reasons known only to herself, the 73-year-old Carry On actress agreed to sit through this hour of public humiliation at the hands of comedians such as Alan Carr, Patrick Kielty and Rich Hall. Although some of the observations are affectionate, they're mostly cruel jokes about her age and sexual history. Windsor gets her own back with a scathing riposte at the end, but otherwise it's pretty uncomfortable viewing.

Lee Mack is the host, which means he's going "to throw as many jokes at you as possible and hope some of them work". A few do. But prefacing a gag with the revelation that not many audiences have laughed at it just isn't conducive to side-splitting laughter. He's joined by Rich Hall, the grouchy, sardonic American comedian who looks uncannily like Moe from The Simpsons and who has a penchant for political observations: for instance, he left the country with Gordon Brown in charge and when he returned it was "being led by two gay antiques dealers". Last on stage is Danny Bhoy, who's half-Scottish and half-Indian: "So unlike most Scots I don't get sunburnt from watching fireworks." Scottish humour, along with a skit about the connection between club music and cats being sick, forms the basis of his act. So something for everyone.