> Sorry, I'm confused. Why have Mitchell and Webb been nominated as a double act, but Merchant and Gervais separately?

Probably so Merchant can be given his own award without bumping Gervais from the nominations. There's been so much talk about that character - rightly, I think, as he's by far and away the only consistently funny thing left in Extras.

> Best female comedy newcomer

Miranda Hart should got this IMHO. Didn't like the show at all, but thought she found brilliant line deliveries; geuinely a time when the performance massively enhanced what was on the page.

> Best new TV comedy

'Respectable' not being included on this list, especially with SSO on there, is criminal. Criminal!!

BTW, has anyone seen the documentary 'The Aristocrats'? It's a bizarre study of one (incredibly disgusting, if done right) joke, featuring 100 comedians. I watched it and then, by coincidence, followed it with series three of Little Britain. Suddenly the too-much-not-funny grossness was shown to me in a whole new light.

Well *I* thought it was interesting...

>BTW, has anyone seen the documentary 'The Aristocrats'?

No, but everything I've read about it has made me want to see it. Maybe I'll pick it up this weekend. There's an awful lot of people in there I enjoy.

I cannot believe Respectable isn't there in the new comedy award!

Still, if Mitchell & Webb win it, I'll be happy. And I didn't find it patchy - I thought it was very consistent. But it is usually the case that if I *love* something, I'll love *all* of it...

Glad you did this, Seb, I couldn't muster the energy. I should be glad the M&W got a few nominations, but it's inevitably going to be Gervais's night. Again.

Despite a weaker-than-the-first-two third series, Peep Show should walk this; but despite a weaker-than-the-first-one second, Extras almost certainly will.

Despite not having seen the second series of Peep Show, the third series didn't seem that much weaker. ("Whatever, Jeremy. Let's not quibble. I'm a man.") The second series of Extras was much weaker than the first, I thought, with the Merchant/Barry-Off-Eastenders aspect being one of the few things that was still funny about it.

'Star Stories' looked awful but was in fact pretty damn good. Overall.... a poor year for comedy, eh ? Think of what this list looked like 10 or even 5 years ago. Y'know - around the time Mitchell & Webb *should* have been getting awards.

Did Little Britain even have a new series this year ? I try to block it out as much as possible.

Despite not having seen the second series of Peep Show, the third series didn't seem that much weaker.

It wasn't THAT much weaker, but it was weaker, I think, than the second one. There was no episode to match the one where Mark goes to University to stalk the one girl on earth who might actually be in any way suitable for him, and last night I watched the last couple of episodes and was struck by the number of "spit your drink out fantastic" lines :

"Yeah, but I was in charge of the buttons, Mark. I drew a line, and you crossed it. I'm going to have to have a think about you, I'm not sure if I can trust you."

"Great. My mate and your woman have gone off somewhere to fuck. What are we going to do now? Build a tent in the living room and eat Dairylea? Is that what you want? 'Cos that's what's gonna happen!"

"But you promised you wouldn't say anything!"
"Hitler promised not to invade Czechoslovakia. This is the real world, Jez, get used to it!"

"I'm in the abyss. I'm deep in the abyss. I've bought a HOUSE in the abyss. I'm having my MAIL FORWARDED to the abyss."

OK...the winners are very easy to pick...

Actor
Winner - Gervais
My pick - Mitchell & Webb

Actress
Winner - Tate
My pick - Tamsin Greig (even though I think Green Wing sucks)

Ent Personality
Winner - Ant 'n' Dec
My pick - either of the others just for a bloody change

Male Newcomer
Winner - Brand
My pick - Brand (I admit, he's made me laugh a lot, particularly on his 6Music show podcast)

Female Newcomer
Winner - Church
My pick - her who shouts from The IT Crowd (even though she shouts, at least it's a good comedy performance)

New Series
Winner- Mitchell & Webb
My pick - Mitchell & Webb (DEFINITELY)

Best comedy (it's a fairly poor lineup IMO)
Winner - Extras
My pick - Extras (only just though, but I thought Peep Show lost it a bit and have not gotten into The Thick Of It. Gervais/Merchant seemed to forget about the Maggie character in the second series which was a big mistake but other than that Extras was pretty good and I enjoyed myself watching that and M & W together)

Entertainment
Winner - Ant and Dec's Christmas Takeaway (ironic considering Christmas Day is about the only day of the year the pizza places close...)
My pick - Harry Hill's TV Burp (I like it because TV needs to have the piss ripped out of it, particularly dross like Holby and Casualty)

International
Winner - The Office (it'll win solely because it's called 'The Office' even though I bet about 2 people (and that's including myself) in this country have watched it on ITV2)
My pick - Curb (Seinfeld being one of my favourite things ever, it's not a surprise that I enjoy this, and the funniest thing is that I managed to fool some people into thinking that it was actually a real documentary series following Larry around)

People's Choice
Winner - er Little Britain is in this category, you bleeding figure it out
My pick - I laugh at most of these (excluding Green Wing and Northern Lights, whatever that is, and series 3 of Little Britain was dire) but seeing as Mitchell & Webb is new and an actual comedy show I'd pick that.

Film
Winner - Wallace & Gromit
My pick - Wallace & Gromit (it's brilliant, check it the heck out)

Stand-up
Winner - Jimmy Carr or Russell Brand (because people know who they are)
My pick - Lee Evans is still amazing at what he does. Incidentally, Jimmy Carr is good but after about ten minutes his style starts to grate.

Stage
Winner - Do I even need to type it? There's some guy who swam the Channel in it.
My pick - The other four shows are probably better than the LB show, even though I've only seen the League one (which was very funny, but maybe not to a non-League fan because you need to know the characters). From what I've seen of the Boosh show it looked great.

So there you go. Hoping for some better comedy next year, to be brutally honest.

> Stand-up
> Winner - Jimmy Carr or Russell Brand (because people know who they are)
> My pick - Lee Evans is still amazing at what he does. Incidentally, Jimmy Carr is good but after about ten
> minutes his style starts to grate.

I saw that Lee Evens tour - more than a decade after I first saw him live - and was incredibly disappointed with the whole thing. Weak material, in a style that's worn pretty thin. I didn't see Ross Noble (um, except in the hotel I was in; he'd apparently gone to the Evans gig!), but suspect he was probably painfully funny...because I've never seen him when he wasn't.

I'm not being facetious, honestly, but I am genuinely surprised that anybody cares about the Comedy Awards anymore. I stopped watching them years ago when they turned into the Jonathan Ross/Michael Barrymore show.

And I know you hate Catherine Tate with a passion, Seb, but I have to disagree with you about her -vs- Katherine Parkinson and Tamsin Grieg. Tate might not be particularly funny but I do think she can act, and takes on different characters successfully. Parkinson shouted a lot and looked ditzy in The IT Crowd (and appears to be doing the same ditzy thing in the recent maltesers advert which is the only other thing I've seen her in) and Grieg seems to play the same character in everything I've ever seen her in, doing that 'slightly bewildered by the world' schtick that became boring a long time ago when I realised it's just how she naturally is.

This all sounds far grumpier than it's supposed to. Sorry.

I was going to write a big long defence of Katherine Parkinson here... but I'll save it for my IT Crowd review, I think...

I was going to write a big long defence of Katherine Parkinson here... but I'll save it for my IT Crowd review, I think...

A perfect title for which would be the SHIT crowd. Unless you liked it of course - which I seem to remember you saying you did.

Don't get me wrong, John, I liked The IT Crowd a lot, I just thought Katherine P's performance was rather too reliant on shouting a lot and falling over. Perhaps when I watch it again I'll think differently. (This is assuming some nice person is going to buy me the DVD for Christmas).

I saw elsewhere that apparently the second series is apparently going to contain less shouting. Hurrah for that!

Tate might not be particularly funny but I do think she can act

"WHAT THE HELL IS THIS PA-LACE?"

The Office (it'll win solely because it's called 'The Office' even though I bet about 2 people (and that's including myself) in this country have watched it on ITV2)

No, if it wins it'll be because it's the funniest thing on TV by miles at the moment.

If Tate wins anything, it will invalidate the whole sorry affair. Ditto Little Britain Series 3.

In what way is the 'whole sorry affair' valid in the first place? Who actually decides on the shortlists and votes for the winners? Who actually cares about the results? It's not as if they make any difference to people's opinions - people who love or hate certain styles of comedy or comedians or actors won't change their minds based on a comedy award or two. It all just seems very very pointless to me, just another backslapping corporate party, only it gets shown on prime time telly.

"No, if it wins it'll be because it's the funniest thing on TV by miles at the moment."

Yeah this is probably true, but I bet not many have seen it in this country. I had reservations about the series initially, even though I liked how the setting thankfully hadn't strayed too far from the Gervais/Merchant version. I thought it just wouldn't work without Gervais, and at first I don't think it did, but now they've got the dynamic right it's a different and yet similar show in the best way possible. I really loved the episode where there's a fire and they have to stand out on the parking lot. The humour that comes from a situation like that is what makes for great comedy.

If I actually get my arse in gear, there'll be a review of the latest season three episode on the site in the next couple of days... 'course, by the time I've done that there'll probably have been another one aired, but what the hell.

No, if it wins it'll be because it's the funniest thing on TV by miles at the moment.

"Dwight:

At 8:00 a.m today, someone poisons the coffee. Do not drink the coffee. More instructions will follow.

Cordially,

Future Dwight"

A perfect title for which would be the SHIT crowd. Unless you liked it of course - which I seem to remember you saying you did.

For my money, unless something pretty fucking spectacular comes up in the next month and a half, it'll be my favourite new telly programme of 2006. I'm often very hard to win over with new comedy - this had me in hysterics from start to finish from the first shot of the first episode.

I've heard a lot of people complain about the shouting in the show - it honestly never bothered me at all. Partly because I couldn't see that much shouting, and partly because I thought that when they were shouting, they were shouting funny things...

"Dwight:

At 8:00 a.m today, someone poisons the coffee. Do not drink the coffee. More instructions will follow.

Cordially,

Future Dwight"

Way to spoil the BEST GAG OF THE ENTIRE SERIES for everyone there, Austin ;-)

See, I was going to be UNspoilery in my review...

So why do you lot think British comedy is so shit?

(I would say "at the moment", but it's been so long I can hardly remember when i did a proper laugh)

Is it something to do with a lack of patience: percieved by telly-lords of the hoi polloi; feeding into the way writers write; then feeding back into the fluffy minds of televisual olympus: with itchy sweaty fingers ready to drop the axe?

Is it because slighty riskier prospects that could go either way are crowded out by committee-driven repetitive ultra-safe mainstream lamb shit that just regurgitates old material to push a particular politically-tainted world view that suits the entertainment archons?

As time goes by it just seems to get worse... I can't help feeling that if the BBC spent some of all that money they've pissed away on totally unnecessary extra channels and services on investing in comedy development, we might not be looking back misty-eyed to what was on 10 or more years ago.
They should just have 3 tv channels: one for thickies, one for snobs, and one for sport (divided between thicky sports and snobby sports).

I mean, come on, is anyone going to seriously be looking back on tedious ordure like "the office" or "little britain" and waxing on about "them were the days"? I dearly hope things don't get that bad.

It's like a complete comedy desert reigned over by vapid talentless fame-obsessed morons (Ricky Gervais, Jonathan Ross, Graham Norton, Marcus Brigstocke... and various other equally bland, predictable, tedious, bullying, unfunny imbeciles)... even the radio comedy has drifted down the pan... it's not just nostalgia... I'm probably a similar age to you... I listened to "Round The Horn" on the radio not so long ago for the first time... it was one of the funniest things I've heard for years... and it's what, 40, 50 years old?

All the telly nowadays seems to be about bullying people; sniping and sneering, yawning out repetetive ininventive "punchlines" like "[snork] daily mail reader, huh huh (aren't I witty)", it's like being trapped in a lift with a Des O'Connor single playing over and over again.

Well, rant over, back to my banjo...