Russell Kane

BBC Three has launched a new comedy show starring a comedian called Russell, to go alongside its other big comedy series, also starring a comedian called Russell.

Live at the Electric is a show which mixes stand-up from Russell Kane with sketches and songs from a huge range of different performers: Humphrey Ker, Nick Helm, and American Hari Kondabolu, as well as sketch troupes Two Episodes of Mash, Jigsaw, Wittank, Lady Garden and Totally Tom.

As with any show featuring so many acts, the quality varies from skit to skit. However, you can almost find something you like. For me, my favourite moment was Wittank's sketch in which a man finishes a job interview, only for his suitcase to open a huge torrent of porn mags falls out of it.

If I were to criticise anything it would be the camera work, mainly duringl Kane's stand-up. I don't mind it if it cuts to Kane talking to camera, but often it would cut to a shot from the back of the stage, filming through a broken window for the supposed purposes of being cool. No, just stick to Kane, or the audience reaction. Don't cut it so you can't actually see anyone.

I would urge readers to give Live at the Electric a go, partly because it's highly entertaining but mainly because it attracted less than half-a-million viewers when it went out on Thursday. So it will only be a matter of time before Zai Bennent, head of BBC Three, axes this along with the rest of the channel's comedy output...

I wouldn't suggest you watch it with your gran, but BBC Three's new comedy series Live at the Electric (9.30pm) is easily worth half an hour of your time.

It's not really live - it couldn't be, I've already watched tonight's episode, they must think we're idiots - but recorded at TV Centre in front of an audience crammed with Russell Kane fans.

At least, I hope they're fans of his, seeing as Russell hosts the whole thing and also does a sizeable chunk of his stand-up.

Mind you, there's plenty more on offer, sketch-wise, from a whole bunch of comedy's rising stars.

Russell Kane presents the sort of show we've all been crying out for: a showcase for various up-and-coming comedians.

Kane introduces sets from Joe Wilkinson (the scruffy oddball upstairs in Him & Her), Diane Morgan, Nick Helm and the Helmettes, and Totally Tom. We're promised music, short films and sketches as well as stand-up, with sketches tonight from Lady Garden, Jigsaw, WitTank, Humphrey Ker and Hari Kondabolu. That's a lot of names to squash into half an hour, so the pace should be quick.

It's Live at the Apollo for the stroppy teenage children of the nation's league of Michael McIntyre fans, basically. Corralled by Russell Kane, a series of young comedy pretenders jostle for attention with inevitably variable but sometimes amusing results. It's pretty hyperactive stuff - nothing's on for more than a couple of minutes, so if one sketch or routine doesn't float your boat, there'll be another one along in a minute. Highlights include duo Two Episodes of Mash (featuring the wonderfully lugubrious, occasionally slightly unnerving Joe Wilkinson) and Nick Helm who closes the show with a song. Hopefully this series will keep the cast rotating - it's a potentially decent showcase for the next comedy generation, with no time for anyone to properly die on their arse.

Fed up with the same old comedy faces on TV? Well here's wittily coiffed funny man Russell Kane to guide us through a showcase of rising talent.

It's a mix of stand-up, sketches and the occasional bit of music, with tonight's highlights including a chance to sample the oddball humour of Joe Wilkinson, best known so far as Russell Tovey's bonkers upstairs neighbour in Him & Her.

Russell Kane introduces the stars

Russell Kane introduces the stars of BBC Three's sketch and character gangshow.

Stand-up comedy is having a moment. You can spot it by the volume of stand-up shows nestling in the grown-up slots of TV programming. BBC3's latest offering grapples for a new take on the usual concept, with the self-coined "third Russell of comedy", Russell Kane, heading up a convoluted sketch-show-cum-stand-up fest. He's joined by the likes of Joe Wilkinson (the creepy one off Him And Her), Nick Helm and Totally Tom in a melee of stand-up, quick-fire sketches and behind-the-scenes skits.

Russell Kane Q&A: 'The geeks are ruling the earth'

Russell Kane continues to uncover the quirks and foibles of the general public in BBC Three's new survey show Britain Unzipped, in which he stars alongside 'nerdy mate' Greg James.

Britain Unzipped, with Greg James and Russell Kane, had me wondering whether my wife had slipped an acid tab into my nightcap. Because if I wasn't hallucinating then we must conclude the bods at BBC3 are indeed in the process of remaking The Word and trying to pass it off as ground-breaking TV.

I wish I could fully explain Britain Unzipped's format, but all I can really tell you is that someone has used your licence fee to commission a survey with the sole intention of using the results to create an hour of student pranks and celebrity-based smut. And the continuity announcer's jolly pre-show boast of 'Prepare to be gobsmacked' could yet turn out be the TV understatement of the year.

Don't get me wrong. In free-thinking modern Britain there should be a place for TV delights such as Holly Willoughby inspecting a young man's bed sheet for stains, a young girl watching her mother parading around their kitchen naked and a guy being forced to eat a burger made of dog food.

But that place should always be late-night ITV2. Not 9pm on a public service channel whose agreed remit is 'to bring younger audiences to high-quality public service broadcasting through a mixed-genre schedule of innovative UK content featuring new UK talent'.

Now, if anyone at BBC3 can explain exactly where Holly Willoughby swearing like a fishwife and a studio audience being offered a prize of beer sits in that remit I'm all ears. If they cannot then I fear they might have to employ someone to conduct a nationwide poll containing just one simple question. "BBC3 - waste of your money or not?"

Russell Kane's debut novel is stand-up's sweet revenge

Comedian Russell Kane tells Dominic Cavendish about his scathing debut novel The Humorist.