Marc Maron’s WTF podcast has reached legendary status amongst comedians and comedy fans. Interviewing some of the biggest names and and the best acts Maron has a unique ability to get to the heart of the performer he is interviewing through extensive research and a unique perspective from being a fellow performer. On a recent visit to the UK Marc sat down with British acts Tim Key, and Adam bloom to get a hold on the UK circuit. US act Reggie Watts also features and there is a cameo from some guy called Harry Deansway.

The London Edition

Stewart Lee in conversation

With over 906 comedy shows to chose from, it can be hard to pick the right show to go and see. Yes… part of the fun of the Fringe is taking a risk, but just think, you could have spent that £12 on three pints instead of listening to some Oxbridge twat doing a what came 1st The Chicken or The Egg Sketch, or some self indulgent arsehole doing a routine about British Rail Sandwiches. With the Fix top 20 an ill informed decision is a thing of the past.

Adam Riches Rides, 16.00, Pleasance courtyard Beside, £11
With an amazing talent for combining drama, narrative and humour Riches is one of the most talented acts on the fringe. Playing Alpha Male characters who are heavy on flaws Riches expertly uses audience interaction, banter and yakult (yes the pro-biotic drink) to create a truly memorable and unique hour of entertainment that you won’t forget in a hurry.

http://www.edfringe.com/whats-on/comedy/adam-riches-rides

Andy Zaltzman Swears To Tell The Truth, Half The Truth, And Everything But The Truth, 16.20, The Stand Comedy club III and IV, £9
Seeing Andy Zaltzman at the Fringe is a true right of passage to becoming an official Fringe aficionado. Mixing satire and whimsy Zaltzman’s penchant for exaggerating the absurdities of politics and news has been honed over the years through his live work and writing for TV and Radio. A show the will give you food for thought and won’t leave you hungry for laughs.

http://www.edfringe.com/whats-on/comedy/andy-zaltzman-swears-to-tell-the-truth-half-the-truth-and-everything-but-the-truth

Carl Donnelly: How Do You Solve a Problem Like Carl Donnelly, 20.55, Underbelly Belly Button £10
With a nomination for the best newcomer award last year Carl is rapidly becoming a fringe favourite. This years show deals with Carl’s transition from south London chav to stand up comedian. Carls skill at structuring an anecdote and mining it for comic gold is second to none coupled with his chilled out drawl if you don’t leave liking him there is something seriously wrong with your sense of humour.

http://www.edfringe.com/whats-on/comedy/carl-donnelly-how-do-you-solve-a-problem-like-carl-donnelly

Colin Hoult: Enemy Of The World, 16.45, Pleasance Courtyard upstairs, £8.50
Character comedians have a long history of success at the Fringe and the latest rising star of Character Comedy is Colin Hoult. Last years show Carnival Of Monsters dealt with a cacophony of sociopaths, misanthropes and losers with ingenious comic mastery and lashings of pathos thrown in for good measure. This years show once again shows that one man and microphone doesn’t just have to be a load of jokes about the differences between men and women.

http://www.edfringe.com/whats-on/comedy/colin-hoult-enemy-of-the-world

Dave Hill: Big In Japan, 20.15, Pleasance Courtyard Beneath, £8.50
Hi, this is Dave Hill.  I am letting Harry stay at my apartment for a few days and he’s just gone to the toilet.  Since Harry is unable to type (or pee without medical assistance) at the moment, I thought I’d speak for him and say that he thinks my shows at Edinburgh are pretty much the greatest things that have ever happened ever.  I caught Harry masturbating in the kitchen this morning and- after staring at him in disbelief for a few seconds- I asked him what he was thinking about while going to town on himself under the table.  He said, “Your shows!  They are just so e-e-exciting!”  Unfortunately the blinds were open and now the police are here.  Show business can be cruel sometimes.

http://www.edfringe.com/whats-on/comedy/dave-hill-big-in-japan

Kevin Eldon is Titting about, 13.00, The Stand Comedy Club, £8
Surprisingly after 20 odd years in the industry Kevin Eldon is making his Edinburgh Debut this year. It’s not that he hasn’t been performing live for the last 20 years, his rare club appearances as the poet Paul Hamilton are some of the best performances you will see on the circuit, more that he’s never got round to it. Now he finally has it’s definitely worth the wait.

http://www.edfringe.com/whats-on/comedy/kevin-eldon-is-titting-about

Lee Kern Filthy Raucous Soul Bitch, 17.30, Fringe At Le Monde, £5
There’s no two ways about it – Kern is a divisive comedian. You’ll either love him or hate him. Dark, deep, intelligent and dirty, his material is deliciously smart and delivers laughs where on the face of it there should be none. Fearless and funny. Definitely one to check out.

13.40, http://www.edfringe.com/whats-on/comedy/lee-kern-filthy-raucous-soul-bitch

Mike Wozniak: Egg and Spoon, 21.10 The Stand Comedy club III and IV, £8
Nominated for the best newcomer award a couple of years back Mike has already built up a loyal following up at the Fringe in that short time. This years show focuses on his attempts to conceive a baby, a tried and tested comedy subject but in Wozniak’s capable hands he shines a comic light on the intricacies of the deed with his unique absurdist wit.

http://www.edfringe.com/whats-on/comedy/mike-wozniak-egg-and-spoon

Stewart Lee: Vegetable Stew, 17.15, The Stand Comedy Club, £10
With 20 years experience of performing at the fringe veteran Lee always puts on a sterling show. Once again using the fringe to try out material for his forthcoming TV show this is a chance to see a true master of the art form at work.

http://www.edfringe.com/whats-on/comedy/stewart-lee-vegetable-stew

Toby, 15.45, Cabaret Voltaire, Free
Making their Edinburgh Debut on PBH’s free fringe, sister double act Sarah and Lizzie Daykin AKA Toby perform inappropriate sketches to win their mothers attention. Imagine the performance prowess of French and Saunders with the comic sensibilities of Pete and Dud in an accomplished hour that belies their tender years.

http://www.edfringe.com/whats-on/comedy/toby-free

American: The Bill Hicks Story is released in cinemas this week. Entertaining, informative and fucking hilarious Nick Helm talks us through the most exciting project Bill Hicks has been involved in since his death.

In all honesty I was never really into Bill Hicks that much. I was always more of a Lee Evans fan. My appreciation for him has certainly grown over the years, but it began so low that its increase barely registered.

Over the years I’ve read books about him and watched his old cable specials, I even bought a couple of his DVD’s, and although I have grown to appreciate him and respect what he achieved in his short life as a comedian, I wouldn’t say I was ever enthusiastic to the point of being a fan.
I think the primary blame for my lack of interest was an old school friend I had that absolutely bloody loved drugs. He used to make me watch Bill Hicks routines to back up his arguments in their favour. Not only did it put me off Bill Hicks, but it put me off my friend and many of his interests.
It wasn’t until a few years ago when I was starting out as a stand up myself that I rediscovered him. I was working in an office and I managed to find many of his gigs on bootleg and I listened to them on constant rotation on my iPod to get me through the daily grind of tedious data entry. It was then that I began to really form an appreciation for him as a performer as I heard his routines honed from gig to gig until they became the routines that have become his calling card from the afterlife.

Recently I was lucky enough to see a press screening of the new documentary American: The Bill Hicks Story by film-makers Matt Harlock and Paul Thomas.

The film consists of a series of revealing talking head interviews conducted with the Hicks’ family and contemporaries, charting his career, his battles with substance abuse and censorship and ultimately his untimely death.

In avoiding conjecture and hearsay, Harlock and Thomas have created an intimate and moving portrayal of one of the most influential comedians of the late 20th Century. It’s easy to say that this documentary, along with a proposed Hollywood Biopic starring Russell Crowe, signals a resurgence of interest in Hicks’ work, but the reality is that since his death he has only grown in popularity, his presence being felt on both sides of the Atlantic from Doug Stanhope to the current London Open Mic Circuit acts - proving his influence is still very much alive and strong.

The film uses an animation process that takes thousands of pre-existing photos, and new ones, and combines them using CGI to create a moving scrapbook of Hicks’ life and career. As we hear about Hicks’ life from then points of view of those that knew him best, the process makes sure that even though Hicks was unavailable to comment on the story of his own life, he is still very much the focus of the piece and although the films visual style takes a while to settle down at first, it soon merges with the spoken word gelling the film together as a whole.

The real treats within the film are the archive footage of his early performances, meticulously pieced together from hundreds of hours of video tape loaned out by the Hicks Estate. The footage shows rare clips from the very beginning of Hicks’ career, before his political leanings took centre stage, and reveal that had Hicks wanted to go down the path of crowd pleasing observational comedian he would have done it with ease and great skill.
Although later famous for his abrasive attitude and frustrated anger at 1990’s American society, it is possible to let the eclipse the fact that Hicks was also incredibly funny.

It’s easy to forget when watching him on video at home or on Youtube that this stuff works much better in the intimate setting of a comedy club. However like the early concert films of Richard Prior or Eddie Murphy or the forthcoming release of Louis CK’s new film ‘Hilarious’, seeing Hicks’ material on the big screen with a live audience filled with fans of the man and the genre, brings the material to life again.

It’s absolutely essential that this film be seen in a cinema with an audience. Stand Up has been downgraded over the years to something that can be caught on late night cable TV or diluted to an inoffensive string of glaringly obvious observations. Which is perhaps the biggest testament to the film. In seeing Hicks in context, with an audience, it shows him to be still undeniably relevant to today’s audiences.
If you already know Hicks’ work then this film is a must, painting a sympathetic and detailed history of a true American artist and revealing the human being beneath the routines. If you are unfamiliar with the man, which according to the film makers is about three quarters of all their audiences, it’s an essential film as it serves as, if not the definitive telling of the Bill Hicks legend, certainly a close contender.

AMERICAN: THE BILL HICKS STORY is out in cinemas Friday May 14th

We unearth a comedy genius you may not have heard of

Daniel Clowes
Graphic novelist

Long before Hollywood actors were clambering over each other to appear in films of graphic novels like Perseopolis and Sin City, and before it was trendy to say that you had read Maus by Art Spieglman, Chicago-born graphic novelist Daniel Clowes was already a phenomenon - adding gravitas to a much-maligned art form that (according to conservative commentators) was lucky to be in a book store at all, let alone be taken seriously by the literati.

Perhaps best known for his graphic novel Ghost World (filmed in 2001 with Scarlett Johanson and Steve Buscemi), Clowes’ graphic novels are not only great stories, but beautiful works of art featuring multilayered characters doused in humour, irony and lashings of sarcasm.

Little is known about Clowes as he seldom gives interviews but, if his comics are anything to go by we can assume that his is a sexually retarded, socially awkward pervert. Can you see why we might be fans at The Fix head office? His books are available in most good bookshops and online - so if you haven’t looked at his stuff already, stop fucking around and get some Daniel Clowes in your lonely little life.

Clowes Must Haves

Ice Haven –  The story of a child’s kidnap from a middle American town, narrated by a disenfranchised hoity-toity poet

Like A Velvet Glove Cast in Iron –  a story set to a background of kitsch Americana, featuring a cast of grotesques including dodgy coppers, small town hoods and a woman who is half-potato

Pussey – Meet Dan Pussey (pronounced poo-say), a graphic novelist and the world’s ultimate outsider, who inhabits a dream world in which he is seeking to crush everyone like “puny ants”.

Try him if you like

David Lynch, Russ Meyer, Robert Crumb

‘Tiny Acts of Rebellion: 97 Almost-Legal Ways To Stick It To The Man’ by Rich Fulcher (O’Mara Books)

Let’s face it, who has the time or inclination to topple a government these days? Never fear, The Mighty Boosh’s Rich Fulcher will show you hundreds of devilish ways to revolt against the tedium of everyday life. Whether it’s making rude gestures to a hotel clerk under the desk or making your own Do Not Disturb sign that says ‘Come In If You Like Swordplay’ , Rich Fulcher’s inventive collection will allow you to unleash your rebellious side without getting arrested. This is a genuinely witty and laugh-out-loud book and would make both great TV and lawyers nervous.

‘Mozipedia’ by Simon Goddard (Ebury)

Worshipped by some, vilified by others, Morrissey is a unique rock and roll creation. The 300,000 words of ‘Mozipedia’ make this the most intimate and in-depth biographical portrait of the man and his music yet. Bringing together every song, album, collaborator, and key location, as well as every hero, book, film, and record to have influenced his art, it is the summation of years of meticulous research. Morrissey authority Simon Goddard has interviewed almost everybody of any importance, making ‘Mozipedia’ the last word on Morrissey and The Smiths. Brilliantly written and beautifully produced – an instant classic.

‘Good Times!’ by Justin Lee Collins (Ebury)

He street jams in spandex and wrestles in lycra. He’s been a magician, a ventriloquist, and a clown. He’s hugged some of the biggest stars in the world and pretty much anyone else who’s crossed his path. He mucks about, wears silly costumes, and manhandles his friend Alan Carr on national TV on a weekly basis. And people have literally paid him to do all this. This coming-of-age story from TV’s most lion-like man follows his journey from collecting Star Wars toys as a small boy to schmoozing Carrie Fisher in her Hollywood home. For each new twist his life has taken, he hasn’t changed a bit. He’s as bouncy, funny, shambolic, huggable, and of course Bristolian as he’s ever been. This is the story of how it all happened. By accident.

We’ve been running twice weekly gigs at the Camden Head for the last 6 months, this has entailed us e-mailing you on a weekly basis which has basically turned the mail-out into the equivalent of dust on your window sill, you know it’s there but you can’t be bothered to do anything about it or perhaps it’s more like ex girlfriends Facebook status updates, they mean something to you but there is nothing you can do about them. For those reasons we have decided to take the mail-out bi-weekly so it becomes like your best friend, you don’t see them all the time but you know where they are if you do want to go out. So what we are going to do is lay out all the forthcoming events and you can just go back to this e-mail when you do feel like venturing out to Camden on a Thursday or Friday night. We will be at the Camden Head every Thursday and Friday so any time you fancy popping down just do.

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Quick Reminder about the forthcoming April the 1st extravaganza with Boothby Graffoe and The Following people plus Kevin Eldon, Antonio Forcione and Phil Kay this Thursday at the Leicester Square theatre, some would say this gig is going to be so good that in years to come we will associate Easter more with this gig than the resurrection of Christ.

Tickets here

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For those of you who haven’t been down to a Fix night before here is what they look like - Lets take this viral like meningitis

Live from the Camden Head Every Thursday and Friday
The Camden Head, 100 Camden High street, London NW1
Doors; 19.30, show 20.30
Tel: 07854370351

Thursday the 1st of April

The Stephen Carlin Project

The Stephen Carlin project is probably the only regular night in London that not only provides you with top original comedy but also tries to assist social change. Join Stephen as he interacts with the audience to help re-write the unwritten laws of society whilst deconstructing and comically meditating on the minutiaes of society that although have little consequence to our every day life are rendered hilarious under Carlin’s comic microscope

Featuring

This generations Spike Milligan - Simon Munnerry
Bad taste one-liners from the dishevelled – Stuart Hudson
High energy high jinks from the young dynamo – James Acaster

Tickets here

And here

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Friday the 2nd of April

The Fergus Craig Affair

Since going solo Fergus Craig has fast established himself as one of the most likeable inventive comedians and MC’s on the circuit. At his new night the Fergus Craig Affair he not only showcases his own unique brand of idiosyncratic humour with stories and left field stand up but features some of the best character and sketch comedians working on the circuit.

Featuring

Surreal anti comedy from Pyecombes premier Caff owner/entertainer – Brian Gittins

The dirty inane mutterings of Watford’s prodigal son Radio 2 and Absolute radios – Barry from Watford

Soon to be seen alongside the mighty Boosh’s Julian Barret on Channel Dave’s Zimbani – Colin Hoult

Plus a Nathan Dean Williams a filthy twisted Alan Bennett for the jilted generation

Tickets here

And here

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Thursday the 8th of April

Spencer Jones is currently starring in one of the most popular shows on TV, CBBC’S Big Babies. Harry Deansway slept in his clothes last night. Together they have formed a double act to host various Fix nights. Harry is more behind it than Spencer for obvious reasons. They have never performed together before and may never perform together again why not help influence that decision for better or for worse by attending this gig.

Dry sarcastic comedy gold from Arnab Chanda
Manic well written observations from Bridget Christie
Plus Guests

Tickets Here

And here

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Friday the 9th of April

Toby Or Not Toby

Toby AKA sisters Sarah and Lizzie Daykin have been going barely 6 months but have already established themselves as one of the most exciting double acts on the circuit with their dark sketches that mix elements of the League Of Gentleman and The Mighty Boosh to create truly original riotously funny sketches. Catch them now before they launch into the comedy stratosphere this Edinburgh.

The UK’s premiere bad taste Frank Sinatra Impersonator Frank Sanazi
One of the most original funny acts on the circuit lo-fi low jinks from Two Episodes Of Mash
Plus guest Andrea Donnavan

Tickets Here

And Here

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Thursday the 15th of April

Seann Walsh Live From The Camden Head

Seann Walsh is one of the most exciting charismatic new talents to appear in recent years. With confidence and material that belies his tender years Seann has already supported Stephen K Ammos on his national tour and appeared on many TV shows.  Charming, accessible and laugh out loud funny see him now at his monthly residency before he starts to sell out venues 10 times this size.

With special guest Joe Wilkinson, Grainne Maguire and Tim Shishodia

Tickets here

And Here

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Website Highlights

It’s been a busy old month for content on the Fix web-site with some of the least known but utterly hilarious comedians from the UK jizzing their comedic load all over the site.

Panel Shows a cultural review, following yet another rejection of his application to appear as a buzzer on 8 out of 10 cats Harry Deansway sets his blog to rant in this stinging attack on one of comedy’s most popular formats .

When not earning a crust as one of the UK’s premiere Gollum impersonators Lee Kern can be found unable to sleep and writing pep talks for man kind .

Imagine if you can a TV show starring Garry Shandling that is even less well known in the UK than The Larry Sanders Show, well it exists and we’ve reviewed it here.

When he’s not dressed as a bald messiah shooting lasers out of his eyes at boy bands in the new Hot Chip Video Ross Lee is being probably one of the funniest people in the UK, here he recounts his 1st proper bird

Speak to most comedians and they will tell you about their own smell my cheese moment with TV executives in a new exclusive section on the web-site comedians anonymously recount their multi media horror stories, anyone up for Monkey Tennis?

Armando Iannucci has  had a hand in most of the outstanding comedic TV shows over the last 20 years in British TV, he’s won countless awards and is considered a genius by most of his peers but one of his most overlooked achievements is the interview he did in the fix a year ago

For fans of The Larry Sanders Show, which is, if not the best, then at least in the top five, sitcoms of all time, you will be pleased to hear that today, for the first time in the UK, a show starring Garry Shandling that - if you can imagine - is even more cult than The Larry Sander’s Show, is released on DVD.

It’s Gary Shandling’s Show, the blueprint for The Larry Sanders Show and, some might argue, Seinfeld too, was born as a segment on The Mike Nesmith Show in the early 80s, where Shandling would act out, in pre-recorded bits, stand up routines in a real life setting, where he would break down the fourth wall and talk to the audience about the situation he was in. From this, the show was developed, written, and pitched to NBC, where it was swiftly declined when Shandling would not tailor the concept of the show to play a delivery man as opposed to a comedian, and talk to his dog instead of breaking down the fourth wall and communicating with the TV audience at home.

It got picked up by Showtime in 1986, who were much more willing to run with the high concept format that was so original (perhaps, in its worst moments, too original) that it has been used rarely since (Sean Hughes’ Sean’s Show being perhaps the only other sitcom to use the format since). The show would use many of the devices that were later fine tuned in The Larry Sanders Show - celebrities playing themselves, and Shandling’s vanity and poor social skills - but where Sanders was so realistic it felt like they had built a fifth wall, Gary Shandling’s show is so purposely unrealistic it has no walls.

Once you get past the high concept - which is pretty hard as it is referred to and used as often as a supporting character - there is a well-written, funny show that deals with the life of a thirty-something stand-up comedian living in his own apartment in LA with a cast of supporting zany characters. When it works, it reaches the highs of the sitcoms it influenced; and when it doesn’t, it’s still enjoyable. It’s not the best sitcom ever made, but it’s certainly one of the most influential and - whatever you say about it - it’s definitely Garry Shandling’s show, and that’s why it’s worth buying.

It’s Garry Shandlings Show facts

.Co-writer of the show Alan Zweibel was one of the original writers on Saturday Night Live

.Before writing and starring in this show, Garry Shandling wrote scripts for Sanford and Son, the US remake of Steptoe and Son

.As well as appearances from Chevy Chase, Tom Petty, and Carl and Rob Reiner, it features the last ever TV appearance of Gilda Radner

Its Garry Shandlings show is released today here.

Narrow your horizons with The Fix’s regular culture column. This week’s guest reviewer, Jane Bussman, tackles The Thorn Birds…

If you want to learn how to write drama – and, for that matter, comedy - you can’t do better than watch this astonishing piece of TV from 1983, the golden age of people with bouffant hair collapsing in sobbing fits, from Dallas to Dynasty to Grange Hill. This Australian saga spanning, I dunno, some awful plastic crows’ feet on Richard Chamberlain, and unconvincing grey streaks in retro hottie Rachel Ward’s hair, was the biggest TV miniseries of all time after Roots, and you’ll see why.

A gay man playing a priest fights off a sex-crazed dog-shooting pensioner, who keeps grabbing his tits and sucking his finger when he tries to jam a communion wafer in her witchy mouth; then the priest sleeps with a girl he mentored from primary school age á la René and Celine Dion. It tells the story of an ambitious young priest, banished to a sheepy Australian outback for dissing a bishop or something (I forget), whereupon he reckons he can con a rich old spinster (played with pure, granite-counter-dissolving malice by Barbara Stanwyck) into leaving all her money to the church. But she wants something in return, namely his wrong end. It’s stalemate until the arrival of a hot young five year old, who grows into Rachel “Smouldering” Ward in about ten minutes flat. The vicious old bat gets jealous, and suddenly we’re on a collision course of oestrogen-fuelled lust and revenge.

Porn for women, the acting is abominable - virtually no scene goes past without someone getting crushed by an unconvincing wild boar, and you want to punch the quasi-paedo, god-bothering hero from the first five minutes of this eight hour saga. Yet it is completely gripping, a perfect lesson in how to hold your audience whether you’re a stand-up, a drama writer, or just regaling someone in a pub. I strongly advise you to rush to the Previously Viewed section of your local public library and slam three pound coins on the counter. PS. I am not joking.

Jane Bussman

‘My Shit Life So Far’ by Frankie Boyle (HarperCollins)

Ever since being brought up by The Beatles, Frankie Boyle has been a tremendous liar. Join him on his adventures with his chum Clangy The Brass Boy, and laugh as he doesn’t accidentally kill a student nurse when a party gets out of hand. Outspoken, outrageous, and brilliantly inappropriate, Frankie Boyle, the dark heart of Mock the Week, says the unsayable as only he can. From the TV programmes he would like to see made (“Celebrities On Acid On Ice: just like Celebrity Dancing On Ice, but with an opening sequence where Graham Norton hoses the celebrities down with liquid LSD”), to his native Scotland, and the Mayor of London (“voting for Boris Johnson wasn’t that different to voting for a Labrador wearing a Wonder Woman costume”), nothing and no one is safe from Frankie’s fearless, sharp-tongued assault. It is difficult to tell whether he hated writing this book or loved it – it is either an £80,000 suicide note or a plea to be taken seriously. Or not. Either way, it is the most ‘out there’ celeb book of the year. Worth buying just for the picture caption about Hugh Dennis, which I can’t reproduce here.

‘My Favourite People and Me, 1978-1988’ by Alan Davies (Michael Joseph)

I was hoping to find myself in this volume, as I spent a very happy four years studying Drama and Theatre Studies alongside Alan Davies at Kent University (1984-1988), but luckily my miscreant past was not deemed worthy of any mention in this brilliant volume. It is a slightly uncomfortable scrapbook of a format, with a series of chapters about different influences, but through the sometimes moving narrative, he paints a really compelling picture of his politicisation, and his real passion for football, family, and music. It is, as Alan says, “an attempt to remember who and what I liked as a boy/youth/idiot and to work out why. There are also some pictures”.

‘He Took My Kidney Then Broke My Heart/’ by Dave Spikey (O’Mara Books)

Everyone knows that their local newspaper has its own unique idea of what is newsworthy - and how these fascinating, and sometimes bizarre, happenings should be shared with the community. In ‘He Took My Kidney, Then Broke My Heart’, Dave Spikey lampoons a collection of the most outrageous, amusing, and downright farcical local news stories from the past few years. All the articles are 100% genuine, ranging from Fun with Ferrets at the YMCA (Halifax Courier) to the intriguingly titled Llama Drama Ding Dong (Lancashire Evening Post). Each news story is framed and analysed by Dave’s comic running commentary. From the man who stole a Grim Reaper costume from Morecambe Town Hall, to the Leicester student who opted for suicide bomber fancy dress (and then strolled through his city centre), no story is safe from Dave’s laugh-out-loud mockery, as he pokes fun at the articles and their protagonists with his trademark wit and humour. Brilliant, and a perfect addition to the smallest room in the house.

‘Ooh! What a Lovely Pair: Our Story’ by Ant and Dec (Michael Joseph)

If I told you, as the press release does, that “this is the book everyone has been waiting for”, and that it is written by two “national heroes”, you might get rather excited and start wondering whether this was the hitherto undiscovered correspondence between Churchill and FDR, or Boswell and Johnson. But no – it is the autobiography of Ant and Dec. Yup, that’s right, those national heroes Ant and Dec. On every level, this book should be terrible – the appalling Us And Our Celebrity Friends photos, the grimace-in-silence anecdotes about Z-listers, and the never-ending jokey matiness which wears thin before you have even finished chapter one. But after three chapters, I just relaxed and let it all brainwash over me. They are great light entertainers, they have an effortless charm, and I suspect they will be working long beyond the sell-by-date of most of their contemporaries. They are, in fact, the greatest people ever to walk on this planet, and I think they should be canonised and made joint President Of the World. With Vernon Kay as their deputy.

On the whole, I hate celebrity books - they smack of smug entitlement and are motivated by nothing more than money and professional jealousy. This Christmas, in a bizarre Room 101-type experiment, I got every celeb/gift book out there, locked myself in, and read them all until my eyes were bleeding real tears. I was pleasantly surprised – in fact, the whole process was a revelation and there are some total gems out there this year. Shop around, though – it should be impossible to find any of these books at full price in the mad scramble for post-Christmas turnover. Here’s a few of the best, with more to follow over the coming weeks…

‘Halfway To Hollywood: Diaries 1980 to 1988: The Film Years’ by Michael Palin (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)

This wondrous volume covers the 1980s, a decade in which the ties that bound the Pythons loosened as they forged their separate careers. After a live performance at the Hollywood Bowl, they made their last performance together in 1983 in the hugely successful Monty Python’s Meaning of Life. Writing and acting in films and television then took over much of Michael’s life, culminating in the smash hit A Fish Called Wanda, in which he played the hapless, stuttering Ken (for which he won a BAFTA for Best Supporting Actor), and the first of his seven celebrated television journeys for the BBC. He wrote much of the dialogue and acted in Terry Gilliam’s Time Bandits, and acted in his next film, Brazil. He co-produced, wrote, and played the lead in The Missionary, opposite Dame Maggie Smith - who also appeared with him in A Private Function, written by Alan Bennett. And so it goes on. Quite simply, Palin is a comic genius, a national treasure, and everyone’s favourite uncle. Essential reading for everyone – it should be prescribed on the National Health.

‘A Fart In A Colander’ by Roy Hudd (O’Mara Books)

I am a sucker for anything to do with Roy Hudd. His career has spanned the last 60 years, and he has worked with everyone from Sir Cliff Richard to Simon Trewin and Morecambe and Wise. My own experience of him was when I worked on his joyous show, Just A Verse And A Chorus, at the Churchill Theatre, Bromley in the early 1980s – it was truly a month of non-stop fun. This book is not all a barrel of laughs, though – Roy had a turbulent early family life; his father left home and his mother committed suicide during the war, leaving his formidable, but adored, grandmother to raise him. But he brings a lightness of touch to even these challenges. He has a mischievous twinkle in his eyes, and his lust for keeping the flame of the old variety era alive lifts this prose off the page in a celebratory and life-enhancing way. Anyone who likes comedy should read this book – it is unputdownable and glorious. You can also find out why Roy Hudd gave June Whitfield a fart machine for Christmas.

‘It’s Not What You Think’ by Chris Evans (HarperCollins)

Chris said recently: “I see this book as an account of a boy who climbed a glorious mountain and then dug himself a huge black valley for no good reason other than he didn’t know what else to do”. From his early years on Manchester’s Piccadilly radio to Don’t Forget Your Toothbrush, The Big Breakfast, and TFI Friday for Channel 4, Chris changed the TV landscape during the 1990s, and, on BBC Radio 1’s Breakfast show and as owner of Virgin Radio, ushered in the age of the celebrity DJ. As a listener, I well remember those Radio 1 breakfast show days when you never quite knew whether he was going to turn up or not and, to be honest, he actually came across as a bit of a knob. I expected to hate this self-indulgent memoir, but I was gripped – he is a genuinely likeable individual, and the story of how he managed to buy Virgin radio is as good as any John Grisham thriller – real edge-of-the-seat stuff and as page-turning as it comes. As with his life, I can’t wait for Vol. 2. Whatever he does next, he will throw himself into it with total passion. His agent, Michael Foster, is a terrific recurring character here too, and he makes Jerry Maguire look like John Major.