First look at tale of a boisterous conman, starring Jim Carrey and Ewan MacGregor...

If the reports that the BBC will close down 6 Music are true, it is a great shame. Of course, this could be seen coming. The BBC has been utterly weak in almost every respect for the past few years, and it is difficult to escape the notion that it is too big, with too many outlets. Of course, when effectively forced to cut back, it will opt to close down the high quality products, rather than those that are merely popular. 6 Music is the only mainstream radio station where you can regularly hear genuinely experimental and alternative music on a regular basis. It is the only station that confounds expectations and delights in challenging the listener. The Freak Zone is a jewel in 6 Music’s crown, dedicated to playing esoteric music from today and undiscovered gems from the past. For...

Wherein we learn Hollywood marketing, film ‘criticism’ and religion make a heady brew of AWESOME! I challenge you not to laugh, also only 4 out of 10 in the US accept the theory of evolution and they say Avatar was successful, it’s got nothing on this ‘Bible’ franchise!...

Red Riding director Anand Tucker can't save this awful Irish-set romcom, writes Peter BradshawAnand Tucker is the massively talented director whose credits include And When Did You Last See Your Father? and TV's Red Riding (now ­enjoying a sensational big-screen ­debut in the US). But even he can do nothing with this horrendous romcom script. Wide-eyed Amy Adams is Anna, the uptight ­Manhattan ­professional and closet ­romantic – and ah, to be sure, isn't it Oireland she's after coming to, to make a leap-year marriage proposal, and stranded there by events which would be more believable if the story was set in 1960, or maybe 1860. She is thrown together with a hunky local taxi driver played by, of all ­people, Matthew Goode – with a dodgy ­accent. Greater...

THANK you,...

A few years back I caught Jason Wood at the Pleasance during the Edinburgh festival. It was a very enjoyable night but sadly one that none of us will ever live through again as the 38 Comedian, who was also the first person to ever be voted off Strictly Come Dancing, died in his sleep on Saturday.For those who did see him or those who didn't here he is at what he did best; making us...

I had my misgivings, but watching the stage version of the Reese Witherspoon comedy gave me a legal highA couple of nights ago, having first consulted the review by my colleague Michael Billington, I went to see the new stage musical version of the film Legally Blonde, which is getting sensational notices and great word-of-mouth. This British stage show is generally rumoured to be not just better than the American Broadway show from which it sprang, but better and more enjoyable than the movie itself, which starred Reese Witherspoon as Elle Woods, the dizzy yet razor-sharp blonde who gets into Harvard Law School with the purpose of snaring a young man – and finds that, improbably, she is a legal whiz.Now, I have sat through some pretty dull stage versions of famous films – the awful...

Is your filing faultless? Your CDs, apostrophes, cutlery all in the right places? Can you eat a biscuit in the correct way? Then Jon Richardson (single for seven years, and counting) could be your ideal man...My last girlfriend was a loser. Literally. A wonderful and beautiful person, but prone to losing things; keys, money, credit cards, mobile phones. Each time she lost something, she would get upset and come to me for help and reassurance.I, on the other hand, am a keeper. Not in the American sense that women throw themselves at me, rather that if you were to ask me to lay my hands on a receipt for a pair of shoes I bought in 1997, I would be angry if it took me more than 90 seconds to locate it. Over to the filing cabinet I would stroll, R for Receipts, S for...

LAST week I posted a video of Freddie 'Parrot Face' Davies' which made me laugh thanks to Steve. This week, here's a video of two grown men pretending to be chickens....

Today, Google unveiled ‘Google Buzz‘. I realise that Google have fingers in lots of pies, but I didn’t expect them to start making...

You know, when I was a kid, adverts for Old Spice usually took place in a football changing room, involved fusty old sports personalities and basically did nothing to remove the idea that Old Spice was for men who actually wanted to smell like a dodgy Robinsons’ pub vault in a Northern working town, circa 1978. Now, it seems, Old Spice has had somewhat of a renaissance. And a funny one at that. Catch the adverts after the jump. Facebook readers, as ever, click here to see the videos. . . Filed under: silly fun stuff, TV Tagged: advertising, after shave, comedy, man, manliness, Old Spice, scent...

It's never been easy ruling from Chelmsford, as this video...

Seemingly New Labour took this as an instruction manual....

I've been an antitheist for most of my life, for those of you who haven't heard the term, an antitheist is like an athiest - without the indifference. I was raised in the bosom of 'good' west of Scotland religion, firstly the Church of Scotland and then the local Baptist church - the teenage move to happy-clappy baptist bullshit the first indication of my burgeoning discomfort with...

Chuck and Buck director Miguel Arteta gives us two Michael Ceras in this fine comedy...

A devout Muslim Londoner (Omid Djalili) discovers he's adopted, and Jewish, in David Baddiel's new comedy. Watch our world exclusive trailer...

If you’re looking for something not at all lovey-dovey to do on Valentine’s Day, you could do worse than head down to The Hexagon to see Dave Gorman perform as part of his Sit down, pedal, pedal, stop and stand up tour. The slightly weird name stems from the fact that he toured the same act last year, travelling between venues by bike. There’s no cycling involved this time though. We managed to catch a preview show in Windsor this week and, being the first time Gorman had performed the routine in months, it was a little rough around the edges. We’d expect a more polished, slicker, snappier act in Reading - though going by our experience, you’ll certainly get your money’s worth. With no support, the geekish comic’s slot lasted well over two hours....

Welcome to February, a little belatedly as I was utterly shattered yesterday, and to ease you into the new month I’ve prepared a selection of links to sites with pretty pictures – each of which will also insidiously get your brain working. Well, I hope they’ll do so for me, anyway, as I’m still knackered and have a great many things I want to write. Marvel, then, at Jodrell Bank’s pick of the night sky for February, a fabulous Douglas Adams pastiche, several comic strips and something not at all safe for work. Hope it cheers and wakes you up.February By NightJodrell Bank’s monthly astronomy update for what to look out for in the night sky. February’s particularly good for Mars and Italian scooters, apparently. Just such a shame President Obama’s decided we’re only going...

Next gig: The Tournament on the 25th January...

Here is an interesting film. It came, not from LoveFilm, but form Amazon. In fact, on looking back over this blog I found they sent it in error. I had ordered Sir Henry at Rawlinson End.But I kept the DVD (having seen the film once before - on television in the 1970s) and finally got round to watching it the other day.Viewed today, The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer is at once a period piece and strangely prophetic.It is a period piece because so many familiar faces from earlier British films are in it - Ronald Fraser, Denis Price, Michael Trubshawe. It is also a period piece of the presence of Peter Cook, John Cleese and Graham Chapman. It was shot as the sixties were drawing to a close and Monty Python was about to become the big thing in television comedy (rivalled only by Arthur...

Well done to Chris Morris for overcoming the obstacles and achieving the film. Warp Films Four Lions site....

…now have competition. Due to the fact that BBC Jockland have an incredibly annoying inability to adjust the programme guide and the little signal that goes out to indicate when a show starts and stops for digital recorders, when they changed the schedule from network norm, I had to record The Persuasionists, or I wouldn’t have recorded the end of QIXL. The EPG and signal always start early so the end of programmes is missing from the recording. It great for dramas where you have every chance of the climax being replace by a blank screen. BBC Two Jockland are the worst at it, and it means that the programme following the one you want to record and watch has to be recorded as well, brilliant for late night schedules when the following prog is four to five hours of News 24...

Exclusive clip from Four Lions, the eagerly-awaited film debut from Brass Eye's creator...

Helen Duffett has just posted some classic news themes. But ended with saying that her nine-year-old was raving away to the current BBC News theme instead.Of course she is not the first person to have considered that. This is not a Troll just a part of one.Of course there is also the 1992 Election theme, but hang on there is also someone making a bit of an...

The Daily Telegraph reports:A total of 181 people aged over 65 were successfully pursued through the courts for violent attacks in 2007, up from 101 ten years earlier.Their offences ranged from murder and attempted murder to more minor crimes such as common assault.Commenting on these figures, Paul Holmes says: "It seems that the Government’s obsession with criminalising people does not stop at the elderly.“Labour's target-driven, box-ticking approach to policing, where minor misdemeanours are treated the same as convictions for murder or rape, has led to mass criminalisation.“I find it more likely that this increase is down to a government which has created a new crime for every day in office, rather than pensioners being twice as violent as ten years ago."He may well be right, but...

The Shropshire Star has a famous guest writer today. Former Monty Python funster Michael Palin writes about the Wrexham & Shropshire railway company, which runs a sightly and very popular service between those town and London Marylebone:Perhaps it lacks the hurtling speed of a Pendolino or a TGV, but Wrexham & Shropshire makes up for this in every other way. Nothing is sacrificed for speed, and yet passenger satisfaction figures are at the top end of the scale.Which surely shows us that people rate a railway on how they’re treated on the train. Wrexham & Shropshire may seem like a throw-back to old-style comforts but I see it as a pioneer setting an example of high service standards which other lines would do well to follow.See also Euan Feguson's comments on the company's...

It's all too easy to relegate our personal projects to the bottom of the pile until "the day job" is complete. The result? We nearly always end up having to leave creative, fun, new projects behind in the interest of ticking someone else's boxes, when those same personal projects could be the very innovation that make the difference. Ji Lee was fed up with his life as an ad exec when he decided to engage the public in parodying that very same world, printing out 50,000 speech bubble stickers and placing them over ads around New York City. Over time, the public took the lead in inventing political or comical speech to make the parody. The ultimate parody in this project is, of course, that ad agencies used them to further promote their products. He spins a good yarn in his 99% video. A...

George Clooney gives a pitch-perfect performance as a corporate downsizerAndrew PulverHenry Barnes...

Thanks to Malcolm Redfellow, who has plenty more spoof Cameron posters to show...

According to this BBC tech piece, in a poll of 1000 brits, conducted by Lewis PR, 5% of respondents thought that Bill Gates was ‘a comedian or a famous thief.’ The other 95% were...

Two days before his wedding, Doug and his three friends drive to Las Vegas for a blow-out bachelor party they'll never forget. But, in fact, when the three groomsmen wake up the next morning, they can't remember a thing. For some reason, they find a tiger in the bathroom and a six-month-old baby in the [...] Read the full post at shaolintiger.com....

The Manchester Evening News carries the important news that Liberal Democrat councillor Dale Mulgrew, who has just become the deputy leader of Rochdale Council, is the son of the comedian Jimmy Cricket."And there's more!"Please yourself. That used to crack us up in the...

Kipple is the result of carefully mashing together choice cuts of found VHS footage to produce new, wonderfully odd and generally hilarious films. It’s the work of video mash-up artists Eagle & Feather, aka Julian Butler and Birmingham’s Steve Rodgers. Here’s one of my personal favourite Kipple clips, called ‘Tony Robinson’s Running Tales‘: You can find much more Kipple on Eagle & Feather’s criminally-undersubscribed Youtube channel here. © Ian Ravenscroft for Created in Birmingham, 2010. | Add a comment | Support CiB - £75 per year gets you loads in...

The openly gay star of hit TV show Glee, tells Danielle Berrin about finally making it in HollywoodIt's 9am on the Paramount Studios set of US TV series Glee, and actor Jane Lynch has just been nominated for her first Golden Globe. "What-eva," she grumbles, throwing her arms up and wobbling her head as if it's no big deal. That kind of nonchalance would exasperate her character, the tyrannical cheerleading coach Sue Sylvester, for whom winning is the chief aim of humankind. But after two decades as a working actor, and with more than 100 film and television credits to her name, including The West Wing, Two And A Half Men, The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Julie & Julia, Lynch has trained herself not to get too excited.The darker heir to High School Musical, Glee is a musical...

My House Points column from today's Liberal Democrat News.Seasonal storiesIt was a quiet holiday in Market Harborough. The Conservative-run district council had promised us a fun-filled late shopping evening on the last Saturday before Christmas, complete with a visit by some real live reindeer.People came from as far as 40 miles away to see them, only to find that the council had cancelled the event at the last minute.In case it snowed.Of course, we all know these idiocies are really the fault of the lawyers and insurance companies, but it still made my Christmas to see the local Tories get a festive kicking from the Daily Mail.And, just for the record, my blog Liberal England made the “elf and safety” joke well before the Mail did.***So I stayed indoors and watched television. More...

Should probably get away from the old "...of 2009" thing, but this bit from Adam and Joe's BBC 6 Music podcast (aka "Podmax") made me laugh harder than anything else last year. A quick iTunes podscan reveals my ears bathed in over 20 hours of A&J last year, with an estimated 12 of those hours spent emitting bizarre giggling sounds. Oh, go on, then:Best podcasts of 2009:1. Adam and Joe BBC 6 Music podcast2. Everything...

Hammersmith ApolloThe last time Billy Connolly took up residence at this venue, he got into hot water with his comments about the Iraq hostage Ken Bigley. No chance of controversy this time: on the first night of his month-long London run, Connolly went back to basics, steering clear of contentious material in favour of the hail-fellow-well-met mirth with which he made his name.This show crashed the ticketing system at Edinburgh's Usher Hall on its sell-out tour of Scotland last year. Now it arrives in London to prove that age hasn't withered the sexagenarian Connolly, nor custom staled his brand of impish variety.That's not to say he doesn't show his age – but when he does, it's for comic effect. "I haven't worked for ages," he says by way of a welcome, and "I haven't a fucking clue...

The country lurches back into its usual routine this week. But with the new year comes changes, and a vital part of everyone’s daily life — the radio — will seem very different. My parents are concerned about what will happen to Radio 2 after the departure of Terry Wogan from breakfast. They were not happy to hear that his replacement will be Chris Evans. My parents originally stopped listening to Radio 1 when Chris Evans took over the Radio 1 breakfast show. (Quite how they tolerated Steve Wright before this is beyond me though.) I get the feeling that they will stick with Radio 2. Chris Evans is a very different broadcaster to what he was ten or fifteen years ago and has apparently pleased most people with his performances on Radio 2 so far. While Terry Wogan’s...

Another year gone, another decade even.  I can hardly get my head round how much has happened in the noughties, and since I didn’t start this blog until halfway through 2004 I would be hard-pressed to remember a lot of it anyway, though I do seem to recall getting married at some point.  It is easier to cast my mind back over twelve months and just concentrate on the year just passed.Music Musically it has been a bit of a strange year, where I finally admitted that the current charts have no relevence to me at all.  I doubt I could name any of the year’s No. 1 singles, with the obvious exception of RATM.   As the year turned I found myself mostly listening to Planet Rock on DAB and then during the year Spotify came along and so a huge proportion of my listening has been...

I don’t send round robin letters with my Christmas cards. I don’t usually manage to send Christmas cards. But if I did send cards and if I did include a letter, the tradition would be to brag about how my kids are doing so well in school and how gorgeous our new kitchen is. Failing that, I thought I’d have a quick look back at some of the stuff that happened to me me me me me this year. I thought it might be cathartic. For me. Me me me. (Links to Twitpics where appropriate.) January I took part in the first round of the Laughing Horse New Act Competition. I made it through to the quarter finals, which was nice. Thank you to the big gaggle of people who came along to support me. One of those was Michael of the thomyk podcast. Oh yes, I’ve been doing stand-up. Not...