The Stage

TV Diary

Published Friday 6 January 2006 at 15:15 by Liz Thomas

It is all looking a bit grim in the world of populist comedy these days. Following on from David Liddiment’s Who Killed the British Sitcom? [Incidentally, the general conclusion was no one] comes more musings from one of the genre’s veteran funnymen, Armando Iannucci.

This year he adds the string of News International’s visiting professor of broadcast media at Oxford, to his writing, producing and performing bow. However in his series of talks, British TV Comedy - Dead or Alive?, Iannucci will reportedly argue that comedy with mass appeal is in its dying days, unless writers and commissioners take up the challenge with fervour.

The problem, it seems, is that everyone thinks that for a comedy to be mainstream, it has to be bland. Iannucci is set to tell the Oxford set that it just ain’t so. In fact, he says that if you look at the success of Fawlty Towers and One Foot in the Grave - it’s all pretty bleak and dark. The speeches begin on January 24 at the Oxford Media Forum - let’s hope that Messrs Thompson and Fincham, both of whom have stressed the importance of comedy in a healthy BBC, are sitting pretty in the audience.

• Nigel Harman, who has returned to his musical theatre roots, gave an exit interview with gusto to The Guardian and firmly dew a line under his time in Walford. He says: “How can I put this politely? You’re not always guaranteed a good script at EastEnders.

“I’ve watched a couple of people deliver lines that were so spectacularly bad, so spectacularly well, it’s bowled me over.”

Ouch. Probably a good thing the drama chiefs killed him off then.

• A Birmingham radio station is to repeat a stunt which will see two strangers marry on the day they meet.

Sticking furiously to the adage that there’s no such thing as bad publicity, BRMB, which generated worldwide coverage and outrage when it set up its “Two Strangers and a Wedding” competition seven years ago, is aiming for more of the same.

In 1999, 200 contestants entered the gameshow, with listeners choosing the bride and groom from a shortlist of eight contestants selected by a panel of judges. Auditions for the pair will be held in Birmingham at the end of the week, with nuptials planned for early next month.

Religious groups have rejected the whole thing as demeaning but in all honesty, the whole things sounds far more human than any of the madness that made up the last series of Big Brother.

The winning couple will bag a luxury wedding, honeymoon, flat and car. But for those of you expecting a fairytale outcome, a word of caution - the last pair lasted just three months after tying the knot.