Steve Bennett (I)

Review: Parsnips, Buttered by Joe Lycett

Parsnips, Buttered never aims to be anything but a silly diversion - presumably for the Christmas gift market - and on that count it scores. I certainly won't be emailing a letter of complaint from a fictitious alter-ego to the publisher...

All About The McKenzies comes to ITV2 with a track record, having already been a pretty successful internet series. Samuell Benta - who did just about everything here, acting, writing, directing - plays his namesake Samuell McKenzie who has ambitions of Hollywood superstardom via rapping, acting and modelling But he's working in a restaurant after a relationship breakdown, and stuck in his overcrowded parents' home, with relatives everywhere, talking fast and over each other.

The sophistication level is set early doors with a fart gag, and the second half starts with an extended diarrhoea scene. While it has a nice energy, from the hip-hop credits to animated inserts, it's all rather over-acted, signposting ordinary lines ought to be funny. Add in very broadly-drawn characters, plots that make little sense and cheesy plinky-plonky background music, and the overall tone makes All About The McKenzies seem more like a CBBC comedy based around the sassy young character of Angel than a mainstream offering. And not a very good CBBC comedy at that.

Nigel Farage Gets His Life Back review

This seems like it could - maybe - have been a good idea for a two-minute Dead Ringers sketch. But stretching the idea of what Nigel Farage gets up to away from frontline politics into a 35-minute mockumentary makes for very slim pickings indeed.

Camden Comedy Club birthday gig review

Free burgers, prosecco, ice cream and, of course, birthday cake were dished out to create a party spirit... though it was barely needed: the audience on a mundane Tuesday night was as bawdy as many a weekend club.

The Comedian's Guide to Survival review

Films about comedians are rarely funny, but The Comedian's Guide To Success breaks that curse by taking the angst and insider jokes of Louis CK's Louie and playing it broader, less arthouse. It's flawed, but with the movie taking its own advice about persistence, director and writer Mark Murphy more than gets away with it.

Comedian discussion: Taking offence at jokes is stupid

Taking offence at jokes displays a 'self-imposed stupidity', comedians claimed yesterday at the Battle Of Ideas festival.

Review: Shirley Ghostman's Spooktacular

Shirley Ghostman is back from the dead - and just in time for Halloween.

Shirley Ghostman's Spooktacular review

The whole show would benefit from being tighter, but Wooton's performance is as, erm, spirited as you could want, as he sells his ideas with bold conviction - even overcoming the evil juju that got into the PA system and cursed his headset mic.

Tony Law review

This isn't, perhaps, vintage Law, but he's never less than intriguing: funny peculiar as much as it is funny ha-ha, though if you buy tickets for a show with a title as cumbersome as A Law Undo His-elf What Welcome, that's only to be expected.

Gary Tank Commander Live review

It's a plot that's stretched a bit thin over two-and-a-half hours (including interval), McHugh not being the first sitcom writer to find difficulties in extending a half-hour format to a feature length. The second half, especially, spends a lot of time on plotting and exposition of a fairly simple story at the expense of laughs. Our possible ISIS man even gets to sing a ballad I Am Your Brother, Set Me Free without irony or piss-take.