Tough Gig

Anyone whose day involves extreme surfing in the freezing water and 60ft waves off the rocky coastline of County Clare could probably do with a little warming up. Cue Russell Howard, whose boyish enthusiasm and sizzlingly funny sets are usually hard to resist... but can he win over these adrenalin junkies?

Rather less amusing was Russell Howard's unbroadcast episode of ITV's Tough Gig, a quickly shelved series in which the likes of Frank Skinner, Dara O'Briain and Patrick Kielty hung out with disparate groups of people for a week before performing comedy to them. 'Hopefully, it'll never appear,' Howard mutters. 'I spent a week with these extreme surfers in Ireland and though it was a lot of fun, I was quite naive about how they would edit it. They left out all the fun to give the gig a sense of jeopardy. Luckily, loads of great stories came out of it that ITV couldn't show. One of these surfers' initiation ceremonies is to go to a post office and try to buy pornography, which led to me being bollocked by a very angry old lady.

The going got too tough...

ITV has dropped its stand-up show Tough Gig in the face of dismal viewing figures.

Patrick Kielty in gun threat

Teenager aimed shooter at comic as he filmed TV show.

Review of Dara O'Briain's Tough Gig

Dara O'Briain's Tough Gig is part of a series which has a refreshing, almost revolutionary twist: it's quite nice to people.

Sent to a self-discovery commune in Dorset, Frank Skinner lived with them for five days and then had to perform a stand-up routine about his experiences to the commune members, who were understandably afraid of being mocked.

Showing a kinder side to his nature, Skinner very skilfully won them over while poking gentle fun at their foibles, but mainly mocking his own insecurities. It was attractively warm.

The trouble is that the camera had shown us a screamingly funny tantric sex session in which one screechingly quasi-orgasmic woman "really went for it", according to Frank, who laughed uncontrollably to camera. In his act, this was watered down.

Is his responsibility to the joke, the feelings of his victim or telling the truth?

Frank Skinner's Tough Gig dragged the comic from his comedy comfort zone and sent him off to live amongst hippies and huggers at a New Age retreat in Devon. At the end of the week, Skinner had to perform a brand new stand-up routine, based upon his experience, with his former hosts becoming his audience.

What made this programme so delightful was Skinner's positive approach to the task. A lazier, less confident comic would have taken the opportunity to ridicule a particularly soft target. Instead, Skinner was open-minded, sensitive, inquisitive, respectful and polite. He was also, I should add, very funny as well. Being embraced on a regular basis didn't hug all the humour out of him.

Any mockery was of a gentle, affectionate nature. A particularly enthusiastic participant in the tantric sex workshop set Skinner off into an uncontrollable fit of the giggles. "Who puts their arms in the air when they orgasm?" Skinner later asked his video diary. "Unless it's at gunpoint."

By the time Skinner took to the stage, he had so thoroughly ingratiated himself into the community that his "tough gig" must have been one of the easiest he's ever played.