Comedy news: Such Small Portions's news

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Are free live comedy recordings really worth the effort? Anna Winston ventures into the murky underworld of Radio 4 to find out

Can you really get something for nothing? The simple answer is no, or at least not in TV-land. Being in the audience for a live TV recording can be an excruciating experience. When aired the programme may fill a quick half hour, but filming it can take four long ones.

My last visit to the London Television Centre on the south bank was a dismal experience. I watched a bunch of 'funny' panellists fail miserably at improv for three and a half hours. The show was so bad it has never been aired.

So, it was with some trepidation that I went along to the live recording of Radio 4's 28 Acts in 28 Minutes at The Drill Hall, just off Tottenham Court Road. While the first series had been rather good, losing hours of your life to endless retakes of one minute routines, while trying to laugh as genuinely as you did the first time, is close to my idea of hell.

Milling around in the bar outside the auditorium, it was clear I wasn't the only veteran of the free recording circuit. The crowd ranged from young and trendy through to late middle-ages. But this lot looked a lot less nervous and lot more middle class than the motley queue outside Television Centre.

An Alcoholic's Sauna

One gentleman in a fetching olive jumper confessed he now finds the idea of paying to see anything painful. His handy hint was always go for radio: it takes less time and is "generally more fun". Plus the TV stations rarely provide access to a moderately priced bar, like the one we were leaning against. But it was rapidly becoming packed, hot and stuffy.

Part of the problem with not paying for tickets is you can't really complain when things don't run according to schedule. I was told to arrive early as the BBC routinely distribute more tickets than seats. If everyone turns up, it's first come first serve. I was waiting in the bar-cum-alcoholics' sauna for 45 minutes. To watch a show that was meant to take 28 minutes.

A few audience members were there to see their favourite comedians or friends. Others had been to recordings earlier in the series and had come back for more. There were a few BBC types floating round too. I was about to give up and head back out into the (comparatively) refreshing air of gridlocked central London when the auditorium doors were flung open. The entire bar stood up as one and surged towards the double doors. Suffice to say it was a bit of a crush.

But in the end everyone managed to get seats, and, unlike in your local cinema, all seemed game to sit next to people they didn't know. Perhaps the BBC just attracts punters with a bit of the old Blitz spirit.

Each Laugh Was A Blessed Relief

Two slightly frazzled-looking men emerged from behind a flimsy black curtain at the side of the stage. It turned out they were the producer and the guy who came up with the concept. Assuming the role of warm-up double act, they made us laugh over stupid jokes about the format, and belittled each others' roles. But their belief in the show shone through the banter and was easy warm to them.

Finally, the acts came out. Radio is nothing like TV. This really was 28 acts in 28 minutes; or at least as close to it as possible. As the show unfolded I saw comedians whose faces I vaguely recognised, some I knew well, like Phil Cornwell, and others I'd never heard. There was a healthy a mix of stand-ups, radio comedians, comedy troops and duos. Each laugh was like a blessed relief, eradicating the memories of TV recording misery.

A mysterious wooden egg-shaped object hovering at the front of the stage flashed a red light when each act's minute was almost up, and the performers dutifully ran on and off stage. Some looked like they wanted to hi-five each other but were too embarrassed to do so.

An eclectic bill of musicians featured in between comedians; everything from one man and his drum kit to a bewitching female singer with her acoustic guitar. The audience greeted every act with applause, admittedly more rapturous for the better known, but unfailingly enthusiastic throughout all 28 performances.

A Full Recommendation

It was a surprisingly enjoyable experience. At the end, the producers thanked the audience for laughing in all the right places and the crowd spilled back out into the bar. As people began to disperse into an unusually mild evening, the comedians milled around in the bar chatting to each other and me.

I felt embarrassingly star-struck in the presence of Geoffrey McGivern and Simon Jones, the original Ford Prefect and Arthur Dent from The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy; voices I grew up with.

It turns out Olive Jumper Man was right. Radio recordings are far more enjoyable than TV. I may never go back to the Television Centre, but I'd recommend The Drill Hall to anyone.

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A growing scene in south-east London is brewing a new type of lo-fi comedy. Georgie Hobbs talks to three promoters with big ideas.

"There's a real cool club on the other side of town
where the real cool kids go to sit around
and talk bad about the other kids.
Yeah, it's a real cool club and you're not part of it."

There's Millie, Pickles and Pattycakes too
and Cubby's making mean jokes about you
ha ha, ya little twit.
Yeah, it's a real cool club and you're not part of it."
'Cool Kids' by Screeching Weasel

As a teenager obsessed with Californian pop-punk, San Franciscan band Screeching Weasel were one of my favourites.

Cool Kids was an ironic ode to elite scenesters; its catchy chorus an indictment against all that was pretentious.

Comedy is often billed as the new punk rock (yawn). But now there really is a small scene spreading through South-East London where a lot of cool kids go to sit around. And tell jokes. Only, they're not too mean; they're nice. There's Joanna, who runs The Funny Folk Café in New Cross, her boyfriend Tom and his pal Terry, who co-run laughterinoddplaces and their friend Joey, who turns a Deptford dive into a surreal circus once a month.

Before they met, they'd each travel across the Thames to Robin Ince's Book Club and feel part of something special. But, says 20-year old Tom Searle, that was when it was "really cliquey in a good way". Since then Ince has got big and where once there was gay camaraderie and a sense that anything could happen, now the same roster of comedians reel out repeated material, says Tom. "You know, Natalie [Haynes] does her Diagnosis Murder bit, Chris [Neill] does Jodie Marsh and after a while you want something else," he moans. "A year ago it was brilliant, but [even] Robin Ince knows it's run out of steam."

Tom Searle says: "Ours is the sort of club Daniel Kitson wishes he could have."
Outspoken entrepreneur that he is, Tom set about creating something equally brilliant. After watching Terry Saunders' Pulp Boy in Edinburgh last year, he knew he'd found a fellow Londoner to share his vision. The two launched the first Laughter In Odd Places together last October. Now one Sunday a month, at around tea-time, Terry brings whichever Airfix model he's working on to, say, a record store, charity shop or library, and delights a homely crowd with stories about how he built the bloody thing.

Domestic farce is a running theme at these clubs, where a bunch of familiar faces bond over shared anecdotes and in-jokes. It's what fellow comedian Dave Nicholls calls "homemade comedy". And it's taking off. 22-year-old Joanna Hawkins has only held the one Funny Folk Café so far.

She started planning the night's anti-folk theme before she'd even met her boyfriend, Tom. "I thought I was so original, like; 'cardi's and anti-folk and cake - it will be great'," she recalls, embarrassed. "And then [Terry's friend] Tom Bell told me about laughter in odd places and obviously it's exactly the same ethos," she laughs.

But what is that ethos? Well, it features a lot of smart, cool kids with a jumble-sale aesthetic and punk attitude. News of their events is spread by word of mouth (or, let's face it, MySpace) and free entrance gained by waving hand-drawn membership cards past Terry and Tom at the door.

Their's is "the sort of club Daniel Kitson wishes he could have," asserts Tom. It's the antithesis of profit-making mega clubs, like Jongleurs, that charge around £14 per ticket, seat up to 300 people and make comedians alter their acts to appeal to the lowest common denominator. Offering slick professionalism and cheap booze to stag nights and hen parties is not really Tom and Terry's thing.

"Jongleurs and The Glee Club are working class where people want jokes they'll be sure they 'get'," he says. "If we're being honest, we're more middle class and think it's fantastic when you don't know why you're laughing." At these nights, comedians provide "confused laughter from the gut and that's what blows [Tom's] mind."

Unlike Jongleurs, Tom and Terry's is a teetotal club. "Some people moan and say; 'What's the point of that if you can't get a drink?' but then I probably don't want them to come," explains Terry. "I want the audience to be like me and not want [lager-loutish behaviour] from a comedy night." Despite a growing membership list, they won't allow more than 40 people through their doors. Why? "One in 20 people is a cunt," says Tom. "Say we had 100 people turning up, that'd be five cunts too many. And they wouldn't like our gigs anyway." He may sound like "some faux-rebellious teenager," he says, but he knows their club isn't for everyone.

Tom is hesitant to call it part of a 'scene' as such, but Dave Nicholls is not. "If it were music, this movement would be lo-fi," he says. Favouring rambling narratives and quirky tips over polished punch lines, straight jokes and audience-fuelled aggression, the New Cross comedy scene is very much like anti-folk.

A movement which local anti-folk musician Phil Serfaty calls, "a punk approach to folk music, it values honesty and humour over technical ability, lyrical clichés and trends." Of course, you don't have to have limited technical ability to be considered anti-folk, he says. But the point is, it's not the winning, it's the taking part - the attempt to do something different.

It's the same ideology that sees Daniel Kitson place a positive emphasis on his stutter or Josie Long exuberantly apologise before her sets and have a go anyway. It's Terry's broken Airfixes and Jo Neary telling audiences, "I don't do comedy, I do little moments."

This Is Not A Circus

As co-founder, cake baker and compère of This Is Not A Circus, 22-year-old Joey (pictured left) personifies the anti-comic style. "He's what Time Out would call 'off-beat'," says Dave Nicholls, the first ever act at his friend's club. Three months old next week, his is a pseudo-seedy affair fit with skewed carnival music, brightly-coloured balloons and dubious day-glo green cakes.

While Tom and Joanna want a jolly good time, Joey lusts after barely controlled chaos, just about kept in check by the kind of polite hipsters he hangs out with. "What I want to try and create is a sort of a Vic Reeves Big Night Out; an anti-comedy night where people just come and interrupt, where there's a bit of mayhem rather than you know, 'here's an act, then a break, then an act'". he says.

To ensure just the right amount of mischief, he pre-arranges disruptive sketches with the acts because - as with anti-folk - "being shabby is part of the whole thing".

Hence, 'Frank'. With stained singlet and a short temper, Frank's a drunk who routinely 'welcomes' on each act with a belch and a grunt. Supposedly he lives in the bins out the back. When he disappears, comedians Matthew Crosby and Tom Parry play ludicrous games like 'Musical Cheese' and 'Soup of the Day?' In the breaks, the audience enter drawing competitions for crap prizes.

On my first visit, I came away empty handed but my friend won a potato. Next time, says Joey, there will be toffee apples. Only, he might not be able to afford them since he works at Pizza Hut during the day.

Anti-folk fan Joanna says the time is nigh for an indie-comedy revolution. She agrees that nights where the comic and crowd lock head over smart-ass heckles are depressing. "I think it needs to move on from that.

Why can't you bring about change by being quite nice rather than being angry and volatile?" She says a traditional delivery of rehearsed jokes is "old hat" and this new "homemade" style is more "genuine". "In 10 years time there might be some sort of ironic return to 'joke-set-up-punchline'," she ponders, "but at the moment, I like how it is."

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Packed with mime, accordions, graph jokes, oh and some book readings, Robin Ince's Book Club's got it all. Jess Holland meets the man who made it happen

Robin Ince's Book Club is probably the only comedy club in the country where the compère will announce: "Next: improvised accordion jazz mime to a Mills and Boon novel of your choice."

It's a place where fantastic stand-up Natalie Hayes can construct an entire set around a Murder She Wrote novel, and where host Robin Ince can get the audience giggling uncontrollably at Daily Mail headlines ('Does This French Woman Have Princess Diana's Kidneys?', 'Illegal Immigrant Eats Raw Swan') and a passage from a book called What God Does When Women Pray.

Ince created the monthly club in the gaps between touring as a stand-up, writing a mockumentary film about a children's dance show, performing on radio and TV, and doing the odd appearance on The Office. Loosely based around readings from books, the club fosters risk-taking and innovation.

The Beginnings

Ince explains how it all began: "I was performing a show in which I would read from Syd Little's autobiography, Little Goes A Long Way, with the music of Philip Glass as a backdrop. I enjoyed that, so I thought I would find other peculiar books and read them out with incongruous music: Mills and Boon with Elgar, caravanning books with Krautrock.

"Then I thought that might make an interesting linking device for slightly more oddball acts like Gawk-a-go-go and Josie Long. It went from there to become the barely heard of, loss-making phenomenon it is now."

But the self-deprecating Ince fails to mention the critical acclaim and awards the Book Club has won in the last eighteen months. He has a knack for spotting the best of young comedic talent, like 28 year-old stand-up Isy Suttie. The show she took to Edinburgh last year, Take a Break Tales by Danielle Ward, was developed at Ince's night, and her gentle, offbeat tales of life in her home town of Matlock, Derbyshire make her a perfect Book Club performer.
"I think audiences are hungry for something different from the norm,"

Danielle says. "When alternative comedy first came about, it grew organically and fed a hunger. A new style can only survive if there are willing consumers who aren't just consuming it because their friend told them it tasted nice.

"Well, it can start off like that but then people have got to eat it, and chew it, and like it. I think it can only happen healthily if it happens organically, and Book Club did."

A Place to Experiment

The night's air of literate savvy and underdog nerdiness is a welcome reprieve from the usual loud-mouthed piss-taking. There's a genuine feeling of community, perhaps enhanced by Ince's willingness to poke fun at his own line-up. ("That started out so well!" he says, when one sketch fizzles out).

He shies away from the suggestion that the club is breaking new ground, describing it instead as "a place to fail without fear and hopefully discover something interesting on the way". Drawing an allusion with the music world, he approves of "a comedy world that smacks of [former Auteurs singer] Luke Haines as well as Girls Aloud. [One where] acts can experiment a little bit and not fear being odder than average."

Since starting at The Albany in Great Portland Street back in January 2005, the Book Club has now moved down the road to UCL's Bloomsbury Theatre, where you'll be able to catch the 'Horror' edition on Friday 13 April. But that's not all Ince is planning. After a wearying run of stand-up shows and the launch of his film Razzle Dazzle in Berlin this February, he's fantasising about starting his own bookshop.

That dream may have to wait though, as Book Club hits the road soon, stopping off at the "very lovely" Latitude festival in Suffolk and, of course, he's continuing his tour "as Ricky Gervais's support gimp" until October.

It's a hectic schedule for a polymath with more pies than fingers. And although there's a buzz growing around Ince and his troupe of kooky comics, the Book Club - still at intimate venues - feels like a brilliant secret once you stumble across it.

So if you're the sort of person who's thrilled by an vaudeville-style song about the history of Europe (the Swedish hard rock band, not the continent) rejoice and get down there; you've found a family.

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With a sitcom in the pipeline and an Edinburgh show to plan, young writer Danielle Ward told Georgie Hobbs how she turned a broken heart into a BBC career

After ordering a "bog-standard tea" from a choice of over 30 in an Islington cafe, self-confessedly dark comic Danielle Ward settles down to talk about light entertainment.

As well as hosting two of her own nights (the surreal Freakshow in Piccadilly and the Alternative Women's Institute in King's Cross), the 28-year old now "writes for all BBC light ents across the board". Light ents? "Or comedy shows, as they're generally known," she smiles, self-consciously. After winning one of two places on the BBC New Writers bursary scheme only last September, it seems she's already entrenched in the lingo.

Ward is enthusiastically stepping into the shoes of former bursary recipients, Stewart Lee, Richard Herring, Doug Naylor, Rory McGrath, Jon Homes and Peter Baynham. Every day at work she walks past a board listing all the winners' names since it's inception in 1979. She tells me she "cannot wait for [her] name to go up there".

Until then, Ward spends her four-day week writing for topical programmes like The Now Show and The News Quiz, reading new scripts and working on her own radio sitcom pilot, to be unveiled when the nine-month contract ends in July. Then she's off to Edinburgh for her fourth Fringe show. At the moment she's in talks with her agent about how she should look on her new show's flyers.

Though she knows her profile as a comedy writer is rising enviably fast, Ward says her stand-up career is merely "pootling along". She is a reluctant performer, one much happier writing for others than for herself, she says. But then, she's only been performing for three years.

Before that, she studied philosophy at Cardiff, where she wrote a screenplay for BBC Talent themed around "a boy in a mental hospital and someone with their eyes inside out, oh and the government as well". It was, by her admission "ridiculous; the most convoluted thing I've ever written. Then again, I was only 19".

Moscow, Broken Hearts & Russell Brand

After a three-month trip to Moscow, where she taught English, vomited violently on the Metro and was kicked by the police, she returned to England and unexpectedly found employment as an economic researcher for the South Korean embassy.

"They thought; 'oh you can talk to foreign people, we'll hire you'. But I don't speak any Korean and only know a bit about finance. Oh, the things I could tell you about the South Korean embassy." She drifts off, before adding: "Well, no, I couldn't - they'd probably shoot me."

Then a boy broke her heart. Sick of her own misery and her housemates' unsympathetic reactions to her noisy wallowing (she's a door-slammer), she paid £70 to join a City Lit comedy course in Holborn."Well, it was either that or macramé," she explains.

"And if you're going to make people hate you, give them a good reason, that's what I say." She sighs ruefully; "That's why I do jokes about people having their heads cut off." (Presumably she's referring to The News Quiz's task of turning Saddam Hussein's death into a series of Radio 4 quips, but given that she hosts a night called Freakshow, you never know.)

The adult education course gently coaxed back her confidence and after 10 weeks, she excelled at the end of term gig. Bolstered by this performance, she practised in front of friends before booking her first open spot at The King's Head, Crouch End a few weeks later.

The venue organised a compère; an up-and-coming comedian named Russell Brand. "This was when he used to look like a bloke, not a Victorian werewolf, you know, before he got the Big Brother gig," she says.

She remembers Brand as being supportive and when she battled past his female entourage to see him at Edinburgh last year, he was still "really ace". She's kept his phone number, but worries he's too famous for her to "bother him".

Getting serious; Rapey footballers and apoliticsm

Ward is hardly a nobody herself. As well as the bursary, she won Time Out's Best Newcomer award last year. In 2004, she wrote her own show (with Roisin Conaty and Isy Suttie) on Radio 1's late-night comedy programme The Milk Run. She then moved on to write for Radio 2's Saturday show The Day The Music Died on a freelance basis.

But, despite her reluctance to perform, she owes it all to her stand-up; she was spotted by The Milk Run producers when performing an open spot in a pub on Great Portland Street. Now she tells all aspiring comics to head to The Albany. It is right next to the BBC's offices; in fact, it's their local.

Although The Albany isn't bad for starting out, she says nothing beats airing your show at the Fringe. It was there that the panel from the BBC bursary scheme saw her first play three years ago and, taking into account her previous radio work and some trial periods writing for The Now Show, awarded her the prize.

"Now I'm doing the job that loads of really famous comics have done, which is brilliant," she says. But does she think that actively opting to write political comedy makes her unusual? "In some ways, political comedy is seen as not a cool thing to do," she replies.

"And that's a shame. But if you think: 'who's the current hero of the comedy circuit?' It's Josie [Long], and she obviously doesn't do political material. Once you've got a figurehead like that it's quite easy for everyone to say, 'oh, I want to be like that', which is no bad thing either."

Outside of the BBC though, Ward says she "never touches the [political] stuff" in her own sets. Then I remind her that a few topical jokes about "rapey" footballers made a prominent appearance at February's Alternative Women's Institute. "Oh well, yeah I suppose. I cover the politics of life maybe, but that's probably a hangover from working at The Now Show."

Trying to marry serious subjects with light humour is difficult, she says - after all you can't just shout at a crowd for 20 minutes. And she's been having trouble striking the balance herself of late; "The first two jokes I wrote for The Now Show this week were about the 'lotto' rapist [Iorworth Hoare] and Harold Shipman, and I thought, they're not going to get used. You know: Radio 4, 6.30 in the evening, there's got to be some compliance."

Indeed, it seems compliance is required no matter how successful you get. "I'm always guilt-tripped into writing the money bits at work," she moans. She once had to write a whole list of jokes on the pre-budget report, none of which were used. "They were good, but I think [MC's] Punt and Dennis decided the subject was too dull," she muses. "They were probably right."

"I think audiences are hungry for something different from the norm," Danielle says. "When alternative comedy first came about, it grew organically and fed a hunger. A new style can only survive if there are willing consumers who aren't just consuming it because their friend told them it tasted nice. Well, it can start off like that but then people have got to eat it, and chew it, and like it. I think it can only happen healthily if it happens organically, and Book Club did."

A Place to Experiment

The night's air of literate savvy and underdog nerdiness is a welcome reprieve from the usual loud-mouthed piss-taking. There's a genuine feeling of community, perhaps enhanced by Ince's willingness to poke fun at his own line-up. ("That started out so well!" he says, when one sketch fizzles out).

He shies away from the suggestion that the club is breaking new ground, describing it instead as "a place to fail without fear and hopefully discover something interesting on the way". Drawing an allusion with the music world, he approves of "a comedy world that smacks of [former Auteurs singer] Luke Haines as well as Girls Aloud. [One where] acts can experiment a little bit and not fear being odder than average."

Since starting at The Albany in Great Portland Street back in January 2005, the Book Club has now moved down the road to UCL's Bloomsbury Theatre, where you'll be able to catch the 'Horror' edition on Friday 13 April. But that's not all Ince is planning. After a wearying run of stand-up shows and the launch of his film Razzle Dazzle in Berlin this February, he's fantasising about starting his own bookshop.

That dream may have to wait though, as Book Club hits the road soon, stopping off at the "very lovely" Latitude festival in Suffolk and, of course, he's continuing his tour "as Ricky Gervais's support gimp" until October.

It's a hectic schedule for a polymath with more pies than fingers. And although there's a buzz growing around Ince and his troupe of kooky comics, the Book Club - still at intimate venues - feels like a brilliant secret once you stumble across it. So if you're the sort of person who's thrilled by an vaudeville-style song about the history of Europe (the Swedish hard rock band, not the continent) rejoice and get down there; you've found a family.

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With BBC set to revive music hall entertainment with Down at the Old Clapham Grand this month. Tim Clark and Simon Jennings head to Leeds to trace the history of the only surviving music hall in Britain.

Above the clutter of teapots and coffee jars, a hotchpotch of multicoloured lamps glow like odd ends left over from a tupperware party. Aged theatregoers sip tea and swap memories in mock-Edwardian booths. Nineteenth century bill posters and photos of forgotten performers adorn the walls.

We have reached an impasse in an (otherwise genial) conversation about times gone by, here in Leeds' City Varieties music hall. Stern costume-maker Clarice Ernshaw has dressed every comedian to grace the stage in the last 20 years, is insisting that she will take her backstage secrets to the grave. "As for telling you anything personal no, I can't." She beams proudly.

The Last Music Hall

Dating back to 1865, City Varieties is the last surviving music hall in Britain.

While other venues closed in the twenties to give way to more plush, modern theatres, Varieties continued to play host to scores of comedy legends. Clarice's photos of Jimmy Cricket, Ken Dodd, and Jon Inman (dressed as a fairy) are strewn across the table. An eight-year-old Charlie Chaplin danced here with local troupe 'The Lancashire Lads'. And the place is also famous for the BBC show The Good Old Days, which was performed here from 1953 to 1983.

During the swinging sixties, The Good Old Days was a fantasy of Edwardian-era comedy, replete with pinstriped suits, straw boaters, comedy acts using snuff, and doves appearing out of jackets. Played to an audience dressed in almost laughably period costume, it was a BBC dream of music hall theatre that never really existed.

Back in the late 1800s, the theatre was actually more like a working men's club where men came after work in their silks to have a drink and be entertained. "It was basically an alehouse," manager Peter Sandeman explains. "Entry was thrupence and you got in for your drinks." A far cry from the "television manifestation" with its glamorous costumes.

The reconstruction The Good Old Days saw the audience get in for free if they came in period costume but left well out of camera shot if they didn't. People flew in from as far away as Scandinavia to see the TV show, arriving from Oslo on the evening flight with their moustaches in suitcases before speeding to the theatre in chartered coaches. Faux-Edwardian Britain was a hit all over the world: the show even aired in Australia.

Smoke and Mirrors

Like the performance itself, the elaborate décor of this ageing theatre is also a reconstruction. Redecorated during the sixties, all around you is an illusion of a theatre that never actually existed.

Backstage, the threadbare passages retain the character of the coach house this theatre used to be. Cramped performers used to vie for a slot in dressing rooms, all squeezed one on top of the other. The lower a performer was on the bill, the higher they had to climb into the pokey loft to get dressed.

All around the auditorium the layers of peeling paint expose the gloss of previous decades. Caretaker Alan Pickett provides a running commentary as we clamber past dimmed stage lights and along the gantries where he chatted with Roy Hudd. Ken Dodd took an eternity to prepare his act, he says.

We clamber round the back of the stage and past the royal box where Prince Edward reputedly ogled at Lily Langtry as she performed back in the thirties. "When he was having his alleged affair the Prince of Wales used to visit incognito, and watch Lily before retiring back to Lord Harewood's house," Pickett chuckles.

Restoration Comedy

Today, the auditorium bears the scars of its illustrious past with its nicotine-stained ceiling and rusty hooks used to carry filming wires from wall to wall.

Volunteers have set up the Friends of the Varieties group to raise funds for a much-needed revamp, to restore the theatre to its former glory. In a new age where scores of comedians perform every night, the dilapidated surroundings are losing their appeal. A modern audience demands more.

The Good Old Days show still runs twice a year, but the likes of Daniel Kitson and Sean Hughes pack the house more regularly. Even those who detest modern comedy and idealise the past cannot ignore the new age of stand-up. "It's crude and vulgar, but it is popular," Clarice says. "We could not keep this theatre going with old-time theatre fifty-two weeks a year. We are well aware of that."

Thanks to Midland Mainline and Virgin Trains for their help with this feature.

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IT Crowd creator Graham Linehan talks to Josh Widdicombe about bucking the trend for downbeat comedy

In 2006 the last rites were performed on British sitcom. Self-appointed experts like Mark Lawson and Alan Yentob pontificated about how the multi-channel format had destroyed the chances of a sitcom ever attracting 10 million viewers again, while Victoria Wood blamed Ricky Gervais. "The sitcom is dead," she said.

"The likes of The Office are so good that you can't go back. Everything is very naturalistic now, whereas before it used to be quite contrived." Every producer nodded their heads in agreement and commissioned another low-key comedy shot on hand-held camera.

Since the first episode of The Royle Family in 1998, commissioners have systematically deserted the studio setting and audience laughter track. After The Office, how could anyone expect to produce a credible and successful show with, gasp, a studio audience? Well, Father Ted and Black Books co-writer, Graham Linehan thought he could.

As sole writer and director of Channel 4's The IT Crowd, he created an unashamedly traditional sitcom. Audience laughter boomed out, actors shouted and lurched around the colourful, cluttered sets and nearly every line contained some kind of gag.

While he's aware his show flew in the face of fashion, he argues it was just what was needed. "Anything fashionable is death to both rock music and comedy. If there's a fashion then really what you should be doing is fighting against it," he says.

But he admits this is problematic. "If you are writing an audience sitcom, people will act like you are crazy because that kind of show isn't popular at the moment. Both Ash [Atala, producer] and Caroline [Leddy, Channel 4 head of comedy] were quite surprised when I said it should be in front of an audience. But they trusted that I know what I'm doing. Wisely or unwisely."

Laughing for a Reason

As a respected and influential comedy writer, it's not surprising Linehan got what he wanted. But did the audience? Not really. They found watching it a shock; many people disliked the brash laughter. It was "distracting". Critics, also, are always quick to point out when a laughter track rings false.

The second series of I'm Alan Partridge springs to mind. "A laughter track is bad only when you notice it," says Linehan. "The thing was, their hearts weren't in the second series of Partridge. It wasn't great, and I don't think they would mind me saying that.

The audience came in super warmed up but [Coogan et al] weren't at the height of their powers. They were still getting [laughs] off of the first series. So, everyone was thinking; 'This isn't that funny, why are they laughing?'"

For Linehan, jarring laughter like this has created one of the great conspiracy theories of modern comedy: the 'fake' laughter track. "It drives me nuts," he says. "People just love to think they are being tricked, like with the '9/11 Bush was flying the plane' shit that's going on at the moment."

He cites Little Britain (he directed the first episode) and The Catherine Tate Show as examples of laughter tracks that have gone down well with audiences. What this highlights, he says, is that each show should be judged on its merits.

"You can't just blanket everything and say everything with an audience is shit and everything without an audience is brilliant. If you had the Royle Family or The Office in front of an audience it would have been a disaster.

[But] if you had Father Ted or Fawlty Towers not in front of an audience it would have been a disaster."

Relaxing into primetime

The IT Crowd is one of those shows that needs an audience, jokes are knowingly over-the-top and set-piece gags loom large. It would seem odd to see Chris Morris deliver a speech in a fake moustache and cycling shorts without laughter.

The first series had its moments, glimpses of classic Linehan, but it seemed a little nervous. Like the audience laughter. The pace was unrelenting and the script was crammed full of gags, written with a fear that a moment without laughter would have viewers switching over to Have I Got News For You.

Linehan now admits that in the first series they were "trying a bit too desperately to please" and says the second series will remedy these problems. "I don't think it could ever be naturalist but I think certainly we are trying to pitch a lot more naturalism into the show.

This time we will have an audience that will have seen the series and be fans - we won't have to dance like little monkeys to get their attention, you know? I'm hoping we can relax a bit, let the characters come out more."

If it goes down well with audiences get ready for a deluge of similar offerings on a prime-time schedule near you. But don't expect Linehan to be at their helm. "If that does happen, then I think the thing I will be working on next will be without an audience."

He is not being deliberately obtuse, just canny: "If everyone's doing one thing, there's a very good chance that people are getting sick of it. So you really should try to do the opposite."

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Since surviving years of sexual abuse as a child, Janey Godley has channelled her experience into an award winning stand-up act and a best-selling book. Will Henley hears about her extraordinary life.

"I was at the Edinburgh festival in 1997, 1998 and 1999 and never got one review," says Janey Godley with a mocking grin. "I was famous for being the comedian that wouldn't get reviewed."

I sit, slightly terrified, staring wide-eyed at this frenetic, feisty Scot in an immaculate rented apartment in Kensington. She is looking for a teapot, and I'm worried about spilling my cuppa on the pristine carpet. All she can find in the blindingly white kitchen is an elaborate porcelain vessel that wouldn't look out of place in the tearoom of the Raj. She notes the irony; "I've gone from abject poverty to gold teapots. I've gone from living in an Oxo cube to this. There's something wrong about that."

Now a best-selling author, successful comic and regular guest on Radio 4, Godley has just been given her own column in The Scotsman, the paper that marked her out as "Scotland's sharpest comedian". Her life these days is far removed from the world she knew growing up in Shettleston in Glasgow's East End. Where it was, "grey and dirty and grimy, [where she] didn't know anybody whose dad wasn't an alcoholic."

Yet in spite of the rough neighbourhood, Godley says her early childhood was happy. Until she turned five, that is, when her uncle began to abuse her. "I'm sitting on his knee and I remember him pulling out his penis," she recalls matter-of-factly. "I was seeing this object and thinking 'what is that?' I knew I wasn't supposed to touch it, but he made me."

"I remember the night he raped me," she says, staring into her now lukewarm tea. She was seven or eight, lying in her bed with its creaky headboard and posters of David Cassidy on the wall.

"I tried to look at his face. I was determined to stare him out. But it was a mistake. He put a pillow over my face, which was fucking terrifying. After it, I knew how babies were made. I sat in bed looking at my belly thinking; 'It's gonna get really big and I'm gonna have a baby'."
She didn't fall pregnant, but the abuse carried on until Godley was 13.

"Uncle David used to play the Beatles or the Rolling Stones when it happened - bands that, to this day, Godley still can't listen to. She says that although he wasn't violent, "he was silently threatening".

While Godley is now at ease talking about Uncle David, for much of her early life she kept it secret: "As I grew older I became increasingly less ashamed of it, of the shame you're 'supposed' to have." After telling her husband, she began to talk about the subject with her friends, family and even punters at the Weavers Inn in Calton, Glasgow, where she was landlady. "It just came up in conversation," she explains. "Fuck that was weird, telling people."

A Breeding Ground for Talent

In the early nineties, Godley started a comedy night at the Weavers where she helped kick-start the career of the thorny-tongued Jerry Sadowitz and began compèring showcases. "It was a good training ground, fuck yeah, a breeding ground for talent," she says. By 1995, she was doing stand-up herself, working at Jesters club in Glasgow and touring Manchester, Liverpool, Holland and America.

Was comedy a cure for sadness, a way of overcoming past demons? Godley says not: "I never used comedy to get over the abuse. I never found it cathartic or therapeutic. I just loved doing stand-up," she says. "I love the obscurity of words and constructing a story that makes people laugh."

But despite positive reactions from audiences, it wasn't until she began to talk about her traumatic past that she really made a big impact on the stand-up scene. Good Godley, a 60-minute, largely unscripted show, premiered at the Edinburgh festival in August 2004. That's where she realised "it's okay to be a woman and talk about subjects that aren't my period and my fanny," she says.

Good Godley was a frank exploration of her gruelling life and connections to Glaswegian gangsters. "I hate that word," she says. "But there isn't another word for people who hide guns and Semtex in their houses."

She was passed up for the Perrier Award, but only after the panel learnt that her act changed every night. Perrier award winners require a set, scripted show.

"I wasn't bitter," says Godley. "I'm Scottish, a woman, and working class, and that as ethnic as you get. You've got to be Oxford-educated to get the Perrier."

When her uncle was finally arrested for the abuse - after Godley published an article about him in her local paper - she had to beg Glasgow's mobsters not to have him murdered. Three weeks before the trial, she pled for his life at a bizarre lunch with the aged hoodlums. "I needed this man alive," she says. "I wanted to expose him as a paedophile."

In the end, Uncle David went to prison for three years but was never convicted for rape. His arms and legs were broken on the first night he was in jail, and he hasn't been seen since he was released.

But Godley doesn't wonder where he is now. She says she's looking forward to the future, that audiences "want to see that person in the flesh who survived it, and that's a good thing".

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Lenny Henry has picked up the award for best outstanding newcomer at the Evening Standard Theatre Awards last night.

The 51-year-old comedian joked that he 'must be the oldest newcomer there has ever been' after picking up the award for his portrayal of Othello, which is currently showing at the Trafalgar Studios.

"Playing Othello was like a dream come true," Henry said. "As far as my career is concerned I love acting and would like to do more."

The comedian recently turned to theatre after 30 years in comedy where he is best known for his role as frontman for the Red Nose Day charity appeal. Henry has however pledged that 'he would never give up comedy for good' despite being enthralled with his Shakespeare role.

"I'm a comedian to my boots, i'll always be a comedian." Henry said.

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Judd Apatow, the man behind Russell Brand's breakthrough Hollywood film Leaving Sarah Marshall, has picked up three films from up-and-coming writing duo Aziz Ansari and Jason Woliner on behalf of Universal Pictures.

The duo, who have previously worked on MTV's cult hit Human Giant, met with Apatow for a breakfast meeting and walked away with a three-movie deal. The writing pair are set to work with Apatow on plotlines for all three films, with a good chance of at least one making it to the big screen. 

Ansari announced on his website that the writers are currently working on three ideas but are unsure which to go with first.

The first, which has been given a working title of Lets Do This is based one around two motivational speakers, the second follows a disgraced Cosmonaut (to be played by Ansari) and the third is a based on Ansari's character Randy in the show Funny People.

Ansari, who won HBO's Best Stand Up award at the 2006 Aspen Comedy Festival, wrote on his blog: "Needless to say, we are very excited to be working with Judd on these projects. Unfortunately, this does however put Jason and I’s plan to remake Short Circuit 2 (with myself playing the Michael McKean role in a revolutionary new makeup technique called “peachface”) on hold indefinitely."

Find out more about Aziz Ansari on his blog: http://azizisbored.tumblr.com

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Pappy's Fun Club have parted ways with one of their founder members, Brendan Dodds after six years.

The London based group formed by Ben Clark, Matthew Crosby, Tom Parry and Brendan Dodds have become one of the leading forces in sketch comedy in recent years, winning a plethora of accolades for their inventive style and presenting.

In a twitter message Dodds said that he was asked to leave after the group decided to head in a new direction 'for business reasons'.

In a statment the Pappy's Fun Club's publicist said that the group 'were evolving' and wished to move forward 'as a trio'.

A message on the website, which is conveniently accompanied by a whole new set of press shots,  reads: "We have parted ways with Brendan. We wish him all the best for the future.

"Tom, Ben and Matthew are continuing to work as a three-man group under the new name Pappy’s and will be touring a revised version of the 200 Sketches show in 2010."

Read more about Pappy's Fun Club at www.pappysfunclub.co.uk