Russell Kane

Lee Nelson, whose thunderously unfunny Well Good Show sank on BBC3 last year, gets another shot at the big time, acting as compere for gaggle of up and coming British comedians in the BBC's specially designed Edinburgh auditorium. Regular BBC3 viewers will recognise a fair few of the wide-eyed, hyperactive standups on show here, including Charlie Baker, David O'Doherty and Russell Kane, who seems to be on just about everything at the moment.

A night of stand-up from the Edinburgh Festival. Online and interactive links mean viewers can even heckle performers. Our hosts are Lee Nelson (a character played by comedian Simon Brodkin), Russell Kane (who won the award for the Fringe's best stand-up last year) and Charlie Baker.

Video: 'Dreams made, hearts broken' at Fringe

Edinburgh's annual Festival Fringe begins in August, showcasing hundreds of comedians and other artists for three weeks at venues around the Scottish capital.

Comedians Russell Kane and Roisin Conaty, who both won awards at last year's Fringe, joined BBC Breakfast to talk about the pitfalls of performing at the world's largest arts festival.

Sarah Millican & Russell Kane on favourite Fringe place

Edinburgh Festival Fringe regulars give us their insiders' insight.

This now long-running Channel 4 panel game has seen some changes over the years. In this series, Jon Richardson has replaced Jason Manford as team captain; the opening round, "What Are You Talking About?", also now only covers the top three most talked about things in Britain as opposed to the original five. The other major change is that the total scores are no longer mentioned, with host Jimmy Carr now simply saying who's won, rather like Mock the Week.

The one major problem I have with 8 Out of 10 Cats is that almost every time there is always one guest who you'd rather not have on the programme. I went through the panel before the show began thinking to myself: "Russell Kane - established, award winning comic and deserves to be on. Josh Widdicombe - a relatively unknown comic who can use this appearance as his big break. Rachel Riley - well, as someone who regularly co-presents Countdown she has experience of quiz formats. Alex Reid - oh, damn!"

However, having said that, I did enjoy the fact that Reid didn't take himself too seriously, taking part in some pretty self-deprecating humour. However, the guest comics, as to be expected, did perform better; Kane's story about a woman he accidentally offended on a train was a particular highlight.

Russell Kane wins Barry Award for best in show

Tough times can be a boon for funny business. We need a laugh, and comics need a quid. Perhaps that's why this year's Melbourne International Comedy Festival saw an unprecedented number of Barry Award winners returning to Melbourne's stages: last year's best of the fest Sammy J & Randy went up alongside Barry alumni Daniel Kitson, Nina Conti, Maria Bamford and The Pajama Men, many of whom enjoyed sellout shows throughout the festival.

Russell Kane takes part in lie-down comedy gig

Russell Kane goes from stand-up to lie down.

Teen-favourite pop punkers McFly are the house band for this episode of the comedian's cheerful weekly mixture of music and comedy. Laughs are provided by prize-winning comedian Zoe Lyons, Julian Clary and regular stand-up Russell Kane, while Little Britain and Come Fly with Me star Matt Lucas and tenor Alfie Boe present the TV debut of The Impossible Dream, their duet cover of the song from Dale Wasserman's musical The Man of La Mancha.

Northern naughty-texter Manford stretches the definition of "rocks" with a musical line-up of crooner James Blunt and drab Iberian ballad prince Enrique Iglesias. Luckily the comedy is much stronger. Russell Kane, Lee Nelson, Pete Firman and Susan Calman join the mighty punster Tim Vine, author of such efficient rib-ticklers as "Velcro: what a rip-off".