Comedy News Round Up

A week is a long time in comedy...

Last week I reviewed the first episode of the second series of the Daisy May Cooper comedy Am I Being Unreasonable? I’d enjoyed the first series but I had to come clean. I couldn’t even work out what was going on in the new episode. One minute she was in a taxi with Tom Davis, the next she was trying to check into a hotel where the receptionist was played by Jamali Maddix. Good scenes in themselves but the whole thing failed to hang together. You can read my review here.

And then, because I’m an open-minded critic and the whole thing was on iPlayer, I watched the second episode. It was brilliant. I lost count of the memorable scenes in it. Apparently the shooting schedule for the first episode was disrupted by Daisy May Cooper giving birth and by the time they started filming some of the cast were unavailable, which might explain the gaping plot holes. Anyway, I’m so glad I gave it a second chance. You should do the same. Here’s my apologetic review of episode two.

And just look who is in it (see below)…

Sitcoms seem to be having a bit of a moment at the moment. I’m also really enjoying the Motherland spin-off Amandaland. As are a lot of friends and fellow critics (apart from my partner…). Here’s my take on episode two.

On the podcast front the award-winning How Do You Cope? is returning, but the bad news is that co-host Elis James isn’t. Other commitments have prevented him from taking part so John Robins is going it alone, interview guests including Joe Wicks, Amanda Knox, Justin Hawkins and Chris McCausland. How will he cope? He does lean a little bit too heavily into his pedant persona for laughs on his BBC podcast with Elis, but going solo should give him a chance to be a bit more serious. I’ll certainly be listening. Details here.

Another week, another comedy competition, another batch of talented new stand-ups. I was invited to judge the Komedia New Comedy Award in Brighton this week and while all the acts weren’t outstanding a lot of the finalists were pretty impressive. It was tough to pick a winner as so many were worthy of the title. Read our lil old review here.

And on the subject of awards, sketch group Tarot picked up the inaugural Next Big Thing award, founded by writer Mark Muldoon and overseen by the British Comedy Guide. As the title suggests, the prize goes to an act that a select band of indutry experts has decided is most deserving of the public’s attention, as well as the media’s spotlight. Find out more here.

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