Tina Fey

The 50 best comedians of the 21st century

Steve Coogan is the funniest Brit, coming second on the list, with American Tina Fey coming first. Once again, in a mirroring of a Channel 4 poll in 2007, Stewart Lee came 41st.

The 30 best living comedians

In the run-up to the Edinburgh Festival our comedy critic Dominic Maxwell ranks the funniest comics working now.

Tonight's guests include Quentin Tarantino and Kurt Russell, touting their ensemble western The Hateful Eight. Tina Fey joins Amy Poehler to promote their new flick, Sisters, which they didn't write but, judging by the trailer, they should have done. Music comes from Sia, who will perform her new single from behind the now customary face curtain.

Ricky Gervais replaced as Golden Globes host

Comic actress Tina Fey, famous for impersonating Sarah Palin, will host next year's Golden Globe awards in Beverly Hills. The decision, announced by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) on its official Twitter account, means acerbic Ricky Gervais will not be returning for a fourth time to skewer Hollywood's leading film and TV stars at the annual ceremony.

Katy Wix's favourite TV shows

Star of new comedy Not Going Out, Katy Wix, talks to Metro about why she can't miss an episode of Breaking Bad, her adoration of 30 Rock writer Tina Fey and why being confused in The Wire is a good thing.

The spotlight on ... Cariad Lloyd

Let a little Cariad Lloyd into your life, with her sparky comedy characters, 50-hour Improvathons and numerous allergies. Oh and if you have Tina Fey or Graeme Garden's emails, please do forward this on.

There was a debate about banking in 10 O'Clock Live, C4's new satire show which, as the title suggests, goes out live. David Mitchell noted that anger at the banks has gone "way beyond the irritation at the pens on strings". It was the best line in what turned out to be a non-event discussion, and one of the highlights of what felt very much like a trial-run hour.

Both Mitchell and Jimmy Carr, who coined the imperishable double-entendre "Johnson out, Balls in" to mark the shadow cabinet reshuffle, enjoyed successful first nights. That's chiefly because they had the strongest monologues and, as it stands, 10 O'Clock Live is over-leveraged on contractualised diatribe obligations.

Charlie Brooker's rant on the egregious Sarah Palin was a frenzied rush at a door that had been kicked off its hinges a long time ago, and all he managed to hit was a brick wall. Whereas the fourth member, Lauren Laverne, had to make do with a lame skit on another mouldy target, American news anchors, and came across as a rather fey Tina Fey. Even the more up-to-date material, such as the revolt in Tunisia, suffered from over-exposure, not least in the show itself, where it featured in two almost identical riffs on tourism.

Although you only launch once, these are very early days. The comedic chemistry and sense of live urgency will take a while to develop. It was not helped by the blank spaciousness of the set, which leaves the participants looking removed not just from the audience but external events. The show's key asset, though, is four talented performers. Last Thursday they each looked as if they desperately didn't want to be the one that failed. Either they make more overt use of that competition or increase the opportunities for collaboration. More dialogue, in other words, and less monologue.

Ian Hislop puts it well when he says satire's job is to ridicule "vice, folly and humbug". He also argues that it works best when politicians are particularly divisive, hence Spitting Image's success at the height of the Thatcher years and Tina Fey's Sarah Palin in the 2008 American election campaign. It's one of the many good points made in a documentary that makes excellent use of David Frost's cachet on both sides of the Atlantic. So sit through the umpteenth showing of Bernard Levin being punched on TW3 in order to also see some insightful interviews with those who have impersonated our leaders, namely Rory Bremner (Tony Blair), Chevy Chase (Gerald Ford) and Will Ferrell (George W Bush), who all consider the extent to which impressions tarnish the reputations of people in high office.

Audiences for Tina Fey's comedy series 30 Rock are so tiny, both in its native America and over here where it's shown on Comedy Central, that they are barely visible to the naked eye. Yet critical acclaim has been so overwhelming and the awards so numerous (it's won Golden Globes and Emmys) that Fey, 30 Rock's creator, writer and lead actor, is now a huge star with a Hollywood film career. Her latest movie, Date Night starring The (US) Office's Steve Carell, is out in Britain shortly. She also became so notorious for her deadly impressions of Sarah Palin on Saturday Night Live ("I can see Russia from my house!") that she was widely credited with torpedoing Palin's vice-presidential hopes. Fey's a bright, witty woman who sparkles in interviews so Ross won't have to work too hard tonight. Sharing sofa-space with Fey are the chef with the Bunsen burner, Heston Blumenthal, and actor Aaron Johnson, who played John Lennon in the Brit-flick Nowhere Boy. Groove Armada featuring Will Young provide the music.