The BBC needs to make more comedy because hard-up commercial broadcasters can't afford the risk, one of the corporation's most senior executives has said. BBC Vision director Jana Bennett has vowed to invest in comedy, saying it is a ‘market-failure' genre, which is not being properly served elsewhere. [Read More]

MTV has ordered a new comedy series about a celebrity puppet who falls so far from grace he is forced to appear on a reality TV show. Warren The Ape, which launches in the States next year, is a spin-off from the short-lived 2002 series Greg The Bunny. The 12-part series follows the cantankerous puppet as he tries to revive his career after that show was cancelled. [Read More]

Comedians are doing more in the fight against terrorism than the Government, according to one senior defence analyst. Professor Michael Clarke, a former advisor to the UN who now runs international security think-tank Royal United Services Institute, says that mocking extremists is the best solution to home-grown terrorism as it strips them of any supposed glamour. [Read More]

American Catholics have condemned comedians Penn & Teller for launching the most ‘defamatory, obscene and vicious' attack on the church ever screened on TV. The Catholic League pressure group is organising a campaign against broadcaster CBS over the episode of Penn & Teller: Bullshit! which aired last week on its cable channel Showtime. The programme attacked the Vatican's intolerance, greed, paranoia, hypocrisy and callous disregard for human suffering', while others branded the church an ‘... [Read More]

As the chorus of disapproval rose, he ploughed through his material, saying he had to fulfill his contractual obligation to stay on stage. Once his time was done he said he would remain there just to ‘be annoying'. [Read More]

As Funny People is released, Jay Richardson examines the relationship between stand-up and cinema [Read More]

Lewis Schaffer has won the Cunning Stunt award for the best publicity stunt at the Edinburgh Fringe. The American comic scooped the title, awarded in memory of Malcolm Hardee for issuing a press release saying he was sponsoring the Edinburgh Comedy Awards - formerly ther Perriers - for £99. The List magazine believed him, and reported that the awards would now be called The Lewies in his honour. [Read More]

Tim Key has won this year's main Edinburgh Comedy Award. Jonny Sweet was named best newcomer, and Peter Buckley Hill won the panel prize for best encapsulating the spirit of the Fringe, for his work organising the Free Fringe movement. Key won the award for his show, The Slutcracker, a mix of poetry, unconventional stand-up and film. [Read More]

The nominations for this year's Edinburgh Comedy Awards have been announced - and it's another all-male shortlist. [Read More]

John Cleese is planning a world tour to help pay off the £12million his third divorce will cost him. Yesterday it was announced that he has finalised the terms of his divorce from third wife Alyce Eichelberger, handing over assets worth $13 million, followed by alimony of $1 million a year for the next seven years. The settlement is said to represent more than half of Cleese's total wealth. So far 15 American dates have been announced for his Final Wave at the World or The Alimony Tour, Year One... [Read More]