The Week in Comedy: Stewart Lee, Reginald D Hunter & Hugh Laurie
Comedy Central have ordered a second series of Stewart Lee’s Alternative Comedy Experience. 12 half-hour episodes are due to air from February 2014, with Lee once again curating the show.
Reginald D Hunter found himself in a spot of bother this week after trying to make people laugh at a football awards dinner. Hunter was booked to perform at the PFA Player of the Year Awards, but was lambasted by PFA chairman Clark Carlisle for using the ‘N-word.’
Hunter has been forced to defend his set, saying: “They have not asked me for the fee back but I want to say in return that I will happily exchange the fee in return for the rights to air the footage of the show we recorded. I use the word nigger quite a lot. I ain’t trying to hurt anybody, I ain’t trying to make a statement or reclaim it because it was a white invention but it’s just how I feel most comfortable referring to my friends.”
Comedian Ava Vidal, meanwhile, has written a frankly ridiculous article for The Guardian about the incident. She said: “I really hope that this incident hasn’t set the fight against racism in football backwards; that some racist fan or player in future defends their use of the word because Hunter has said it.”
The Underbelly is further expanding its Edinburgh Fringe operation, with a brand new 200-seat venue. Underbelly won a bidding war against the other ‘Big Four’ fringe venues to secure the space.
Channel 4 has commissioned a second series of life-change sitcom The Mimic, starring Terry Mynott.
Another C4 show, Friday Night Dinner, is also said to have been recommissioned.
Ken Dodd on North East comedy: “The North East has such a great history of comics. Jimmy James, Dave Morris, ‘The Little Waster’ Bobby Thompson, Reg Thompson – all these comedians and comediennes. Ladies and gentlemen from the North East love to laugh, and that’s a great thing, you know. They do love a good comic.”
Piff The Magic Dragon has been named stage magician of the year by The Magic Circle.
Hugh Laurie says he quit US medical drama House at the right time. He said: “At this distance it all sounds absurd. Ridiculous! After all, what was I doing other than playing about, telling stories with a very nice bunch of people? What could be constricting about that? But the repetition of any routine, day after month after year, can turn into a bit of a nightmare.”
Richard Herring and Craig Campbell have been announced as the comedy headliners at this year’s Stockton Weekender festival.
Comedian John Scott on his new topical panel show at the Newcastle Stand: “I’ve been quite dismayed to run into problems at gigs in Sheffield and Gateshead when cracking jokes about the immoral bint – but that just makes me feel that a show like Sod the Tories is all the more important.” Hear, hear.
Last but not least, Caitlin Moran has written a sitcom pilot for C4 about a single mother raising six, home-schooled children in Wolverhampton.
