The Week in Comedy: Steve Coogan, Frankie Boyle & Jennifer Saunders
Speaking on The Jonathan Ross Show last night, Steve Coogan has admitted he gets sick of writing for Alan Partridge. He said: “It might be alright watching for half an hour, but imagine sitting in a room with him for three months. That’s what you have to do when you write him. You do get sick of him because it’s like being in the room with an idiot. But then what you do is you leave him alone for a while and then after a while you start to miss him.”
In the same interview, Coogan teased the plot for the Alan Partridge movie, Alpha Papa: “Alan is in Norwich and he’s DJing on North Norfolk Digital, but a big horrible company called Gordale Media comes along to take over the radio station, rob it of all its personality and change it from North Norfolk Digital to ‘Shape’. Lots of people get sacked and to cut a long story short, there’s a big siege at the radio station, when all the world’s media descend on it, and Alan is at the centre of it as the negotiator between the gunman and the police outside.” We can’t wait.
Giggle Beats is to sponsor Newcastle’s first free comedy festival. Creased Comedy Festival takes place on Saturday 6 July at The Cluny 2. Shows start at noon and run until late.
Rich Hall has won the Barry Award, Australia’s biggest live comedy award. Hall won the prize at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, beating off competition from Max & Ivan, Trevor Noah, Hannah Gadsby, Michael Workman, Kitty Flanagan and John Conway.
Comedy man of the hour Chris Ramsey has announced a 38-date tour of the UK, taking in Durham, Middlesbrough and Newcastle amongst others.
Carla Lane, whose work includes Bread, Butterflies and The Liver Birds, is writing a new sitcom set in Liverpool. She told the Daily Telegraph: “My mind is working on an idea. I’ve been seriously thinking of writing more about something here in Liverpool. It’s where I was born and I understand it best of all. It will be about a street, that I can tell you, because everything that happens in life happens in a Liverpool street.”
Lee Nelson announced on Friday that he was to stand in the South Shields by-election next month. A few hours later – after widespread media coverage – he pulled out.
Funny Way To Be Comedy Club have announced their Edinburgh Fringe taster season, a series of preview shows in June and July. The Barnard Castle outfit will play host to Alun Cochrane, Joe Lycett, Mick Ferry and more. Full story on Giggle Beats tomorrow.
Omid Djalili got quite the surprise in Newcastle last Sunday, when ‘the Toon’ was smashed up following the Tyne/Wear derby. Luckily Djalili was tucked away in the Newcastle Stand’s basement performing a work-in-progress show. We were there; very funny.
Mock The Week host Dara O’Briain on Frankie Boyle’s role on the show. O’Briain said: “Frankie would distill the discussion into a brilliantly punchy killer line. Some [comedians] are open-ended: they say something to add to the discussion and move it along, riffing on it. Frankie would be more: bang! That’s the end of that. That’s the last word on that topic. That was his genius – and it was perfectly suited for the editing of this kind of show – but it did breed an atmosphere where everyone had to get in there as quickly as possible. We became a bit of a bear pit. People who do it now don’t find that.”
Last but not least, Jennifer Saunders has ruled out another series of French & Saunders because she says the BBC can no longer afford them (in so many words). She said: “When we first made the show there was a good budget. You could afford to make it look how you wanted it to look and you could do what you wanted. Nowadays we wouldn’t have that and it wouldn’t look as good as the ones we’ve done before.”
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