News

New comedy from 3rd Rock star

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 02:52:00 EST

Joseph Gordon-Levitt is about to work on his comedy directorial debut.

The star of Inception and 500 Days of Summer (but who we'll always love for 3rd Rock from the Sun) is turning his hand to comedy again.

He's also turning his hand to writing and directing too. He's also got someone to finance his debut movie. Which is probably more admirable than the writing and directing part to be fair.

So far, the movie has no name but he's to star and has managed to get Scarlett Johansson into it to play one of the two female roles. This makes us quite interested.

The story is about 'a modern day Don Juan and his journey to become less of a selfish dick'.

Which is an admirable cause. Yes. Well done, Mr JGL.

Production is set to start in Los Angeles on 16th April and we'll be surfing the internet around that date for pictures of Scarlett Johansson as she arrives on set. Mmmm.]]>

Who's the most hilarious-awards

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 07:00:00 EST

LAFTAS have just taken place this afternoon, championing all that is funny in the world. Which is nice and doing what it says on the tin.

A bit like the BAFTAS only in the sense that they dish out awards, the LAFTAS took place at London's Cuckoo Club and were hosted by Greg Burns.

Key winners were Rob Brydon who followed Frank Skinner and Harry Enfield into the Loaded Legend 'hall of fame' while 8 Out of 10 Cats Jon Richardson was the 'Funniest Man' and Andi Osho, the 'Funniest Woman'.

There was even an award for the funniest joke. It was for the dog in The Artist.

That was a joke btw: it actually went to Tim Vine for one about conjunctivitis.

Going behind the scenes, we can only imagine the champagne that was quaffed, the backs that were patted and the hilarity that ensued.

Here's who won what funny-fans:

Funniest Man Winner: Jon Richardson Nominees: Al Murray, Jimmy Carr, Lee Evans, Leigh Francis

Best Stand-Up Winner: Alan Carr Nominees: Jason Manford, Kevin Bridges, Micky Flanagan, Russell Kane

Funniest Woman Winner: Andi Osho Nominees: Isy Suttie, Katy Brand, Morgana Robinson, Sarah Millican

Funniest Double Act Winner: Vic & Bob Nominees: Anna Crilly and Katy Wix, Dick and Dom, Mitchell and Webb, The Chuckle Brothers

Best Panel Show Winner: Celebrity Juice Nominees: 8 out of 10 Cats, Ask Rhod Gilbert, Shooting Stars, Would I Lie to You

Funniest TV Show Winner: Fresh Meat Nominees: Chatty Man, Facejacker, Outnumbered, Phone Shop

Funniest Film Winner: The Inbetweeners Nominees: Bridesmaids, Johnny English, Paul, The Hangover Part II

Funniest Columnist Winner: Gordon Smart Nominees: Caitlin Moran, Grace Dent, Frankie Boyle

Funniest TV Personality Winner: Lee Nelson Nominees: Angelos Epithemiou, David Hasselhoff, Ian Beale, Jedward

Funniest Twitterer Winner: Dom Joly Nominees: Jimmy Carr, Matt Lucas, Richard Bacon, Stephen Merchant

Funniest DVD Winner: Jimmy Carr: Being Funny Nominees: Angelos Epithemiou & Friends Live, Jason Manford Live 2011, John Bishop Live - Sunshine Tour, Tim Minchin and The Heritage Orchestra - Live at The Royal Albert Hall

Funniest Podcast Winner: Pappy's Flatshare Slamdown Nominees: Dom Joly's Celebrity Comedy Podcasts, The Danny Baker Show, The Dave Gorman Podcast, The Ricky Gervais Podcast

Funniest Radio Show Winner: Danny Wallace, Xfm Nominees: Christian O'Connell, Absolute Radio, Dave Berry, Capital FM, Hawksbee and Jacobs, Talk Sport, Shaun Keaveny, 6 Music Breakfast Show

Best Internet Viral Show Winner: Misery Bear Nominees: Alan Partridge, Harry Hill, The Fast Show, Vic & Bob

Best Newcomer Winner: Pat Monahan Nominees: Doc Brown, Frisky & Mannish, Josh Widdicombe, Roisin Conaty

Funniest Joke: Winner: Tim Vine: "Conjunctivitus.com - that's a site for sore eyes." Nominees:

Jimmy Carr. "I know a couple who get on like a house on fire. They both feel trapped and are slowly suffocating to death."

Matt Kirshen: "I was playing chess with my friend and he said, 'Let's make this interesting'. So we stopped playing chess." Paul Daniels: "I said to a fella 'Is there a B&Q in Henley?' He said 'No, there's an H, an E, an N an L and a Y'."

Sarah Millican: "My mother told me, you don't have to put anything in your mouth you don't want to. Then she made me eat broccoli, which felt like double standards."]]>

Mackenzie Crook – children’s book writer

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 07:00:00 EST

Mackenzie Crook has been shortlisted for this year’s Waterstones Children's Book Prize for his debut novel, The Windvale Sprites.

He’s best known for playing Gareth in the show, but not particularly known for typing into a computer or illustrating. But this is what he has done for this book.

He stands to take home £2,000 if he wins in the five-to-12-year-old-category and can get a further £3,000 if he becomes the overall winner in three categories. Like, wow – prizes are awesome!!

But we guess people just don’t make any money out of books now that there’s the interweb and libraries and Oxfam bookshops.

Now in its eighth year, the prize was created to ‘reward and champion new and emerging talent in children's writing.’

But Mackenzie follows a very long line of celebrities who’ve written outstanding children’s books like Madonna, Geri Halliwell and Jordan – or are we calling her Katie Price these days?!

What is interesting is that – and correct us if we’re wrong here – The Windvale Sprites kinda slipped under the radar without some all-encompassing behemoth of marketing spend that results in us deludedly queuing up over night outside a bookshop with the wrong kind of weather with the wrong kind of sleeping bag. A Katie Price book never really quite makes up for that it has to be said.]]>

Zooey Deschanel sings

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 07:00:00 EST

Zooey Deschanel is featured in not one but – count them! – three new videos to promote New Girl. She sings in them too.

They are cutesy and funsy just like her and/or her character in the show. You can find them on the interweb and they are interactive so you can choose different outcomes for her character throughout the song. How fun, how cute, how Zooey!

We bet you didn’t even know she could sing but she actually has a singing career that you can Google-up under the title She & Him. They’re a duo with singer/songwriter M.Ward, last heard on MP3 singing Christmas songs last year.

We just wanted to add that it comes to something when you’re writing news about marketing material but hey, it’s better than writing news about a tweet, which admittedly we’ve done in the past.

RELATED: Ashton Kutchers tweets about Twitter account hack

But we’re looking forward to the day we write news about a bit.ly link.]]>

Ricky Gervais in Super Bowl advert

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 07:00:00 EST

Ricky Gervais was also ‘at the Super Bowl’ on Sunday evening in theory – we forgive you if you’ve previously overlooked such business, Madonna was pretty all-encompassing after all.

As you know, the Super Bowl is big business Stateside: as the ultimate event for macho-dumbasses, it’s perfect for selling big cars, beer, women in bikinis and hamburgers...

So, maybe you can call it ‘pioneering’ that an ad featuring Ricky Gervais running from zombies and explosions featured in the commercial break. Or maybe not.

The ad for Time Warner Cable sees Ricky mocking his social networking use, saying ‘Friend request? Yes please, let's be friends because you're probably brilliant. Request denied. What are you going to do about it?’

A grenade is subsequently thrown onto his café table before all manner of hilarity or mayhem or nonsense ensues. Your take on this may reflect your feelings about Ricky Gervais. Even actress Mary Louise Parker is caught up in the whole shebang.

You’ll be able to find it on the internet, Ricky fans.

In other Super Bowl XLVI news, it was the most viewed show in US TV history for NBC.]]>

Threesome Series 2 confirmed!

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 08:58:00 EST

Threesome !

Last year we introduced you to the party-hard Alice (Amy Huberman), Mitch (Stephen Wight) and Richie (Emun Elliott) who, on Alice’s 30th had a little too much fun and created a little bouncing baby.

Utterly hopeless as individuals, the trio decided three heads were better than one in this situation and decided to make a go at parenting as a threesome.

Nine months and seven episodes later this little bundle of joy appeared...

Download Threesome on iTunes.

Last week Amy was nominated in the Comedy Actress category at the 2012 Glamour Awards for her role in Threesome!

VOTE FOR AMY TO WIN THE GLAMOUR AWARD HERE – OR ELSE

Expect a whole load of questionable parenting techniques when the second series of Threesome airs later this year.

Missed the first series? Watch it again Tuesdays at 10pm on Comedy Central.

Watch behind the scenes videos of Threesome here.]]>

The Guard wins comedy award

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 07:00:00 EST

Evening Standard Film Awards dished out at the London Film Museum with The Guard taking home the award for comedy. The Inbetweeners didn’t win anything for a change.

The Evening Standard Awards only had ten awards to give out so it was a lot less boring than usual, we imagine.

Plus they threw in a whole dimension of surprise as Monday's ceremony was delayed after a fire alarm during the champagne reception meant that all the guests including Tom Hiddleston, Birdsong's Clemence Poesy and Downton Abbey's Jessica Brown-Findlay were evacuated outside (though we can’t tell you if they came back yesterday or whether they had other plans…)

Anyways, The Guard was written and directed by John Michael McDonagh and is about an unorthodox Irish policeman (Brendan Gleeson) who’s teamed with an uptight FBI agent (Don Cheadle) for a case. So maybe this will mean people will give it the time of day now…

And here’s the other winners fyi.

Best Film – Lynne Ramsay for We Need to Talk About Kevin

Best Actor - Michael Fassbender for Shame and Jane Eyre

Best Actress - Olivia Colman for Tyrannosaur

Most Promising Newcomers - Tom Kingsley and Will Sharpe for Black Pond

Peter Sellers Award for Comedy - The Guard, written and directed by John Michael McDonagh

Best Documentary - Senna, Asif Kapadia

Best Screenplay - Andrew Haigh, Weekend London Film Museum Award for Technical Achievement - Robbie Ryan for his cinematography of Wuthering Heights

Alexander Walker Special Award - John Hurt for his contribution to cinema

Blockbuster of the year, people’s choice award - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, 3D*

*Don’t forget that all important 3D.]]>

Download Threesome for 99p!

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 07:53:00 EST

Threesome in their email inbox.

Unless your other half is very open to new ideas we’d suggest making sure they know it’s a funny TV programme they’re receiving and not anything else.

Yes iTunes have gotten all loved up this week and are giving away romantic episodes of your favourite films and TV shows for 99p (£1.19 HD) including our very own Threesome.

Download and keep funny moments like these:

Download Threesome on iTunes.

Watch Threesome Series 1 Tuesdays at 10pm on Comedy Central.

Feel free to tell us about any awkward moments that arise from putting these on your hard drive. Bad choice of words...

RELATED: Threesome's Amy Huberman nominated for 2012 Glamour Award!]]>

John Bishop’s Sport Relief campaign

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 07:00:00 EST

Sport Relief. John Bishop is one such person who’ll be looking to complete a 290-mile triathlon.

He’s calling it ‘the biggest physical challenge of my life’ cycling, rowing and running from the Eiffel Tower to Trafalgar Square. We may be more prepared to call it utter madness were it not for the charity angle.

He’s hoping to complete the triathlon in less than five days: he’ll cycle from Paris to the French coast, then instead of hitting duty free and putting his feet up across the channel, he’ll row across with a team of celebrity rowers including Andrew Flintoff and Davina.

The final leg will see him completing the equivalent of three marathons with Frank Skinner, Dermot O'Leary and Robbie Savage.

We don’t know what is more gruelling the exercise or having to spend time in the presence of celebrities but he’s putting on a brave face, ‘I must be mad. I'm a man in my mid-40s, a bit thicker round the middle than I'd like to be and I'm about to take on the biggest physical challenge of my life.

‘Up until a few weeks ago I'd never even sat in a rowing boat and now I've got miles of water to cover, then there's the cycle and don't even mention the word marathon to me.

‘I know there will be times during the challenge when I'll be freezing cold and fed up but when I'm down I will think back to the people I met in Sierra Leone earlier this year and I'll know every penny I raise really will make a massive difference to people's lives.’ If you want to make sure that he actually does what he says he’ll do, don’t worry, it will all be filmed for a BBC documentary.

We are very impressed: our notion of exercise is actually having to get up off the sofa to answer the door to the pizza delivery man. We’ve tried to leave the door ajar for him in the past hoping he’ll be able to serve it and pour us a beer but he says that makes him uncomfortable.]]>

Dawn French has lost weight!

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 07:00:00 EST

Dawn French is making headlines today, having shifted a whopping 7 and a half stone.

Talking to Woman magazine, Dawn has been chatting about her drop from 19 stone: ‘I had great fondness for that other body. I knew it very well and I don’t know this one as well, not yet.

'I was never actually unhappy then so it’s not the case that I was miserable and I’m happy now.'

Listen up weight watchers, there was no major secret: no gastric band, no heartbreak diet – it was simply a case of cutting out chocolate and carbohydrates.

She said: 'I don’t eat bread, potatoes or pasta now. I don’t have chocolate in my house. That is really hard.'

We can’t help but second that emotion.]]>