As well as live stand-up, he has performed on programmes such as Live at the Apollo and his own successful programme, Michael McIntyre’s Comedy Roadshow whereby he acts as compere and introduces comedians both famous and new.

As well as appearing on quiz panel shows such as Have I Got News For You, 8 Out of 10 Cats and Mock The Week, in 2009 McIntyre appeared as a judge on Let’s Dance for Comic Relief and also had a stint on the fifth series of Britain’s Got Talent in 2011.  But this was probably one branch too far.

Michael McIntyre is probably the single most popular stand-up comedian in the UK right now.  His Christmas Comedy Roadshow was watched by over 8 million people.  His biography, Life and Laughing was a Sunday Times #1 Best Seller; while Hello Wembley became the fastest selling stand-up DVD of all time.

If that wasn’t enough accolades for one man, Michael McIntyre’s Comedy Roadshow won Best Entertainment Show at the National Television Awards 2012

This year Michael McIntyre will play to sell out audiences as he once again hits the road.    His latest UK & Ireland Arena Tour will be his third and biggest tour to date, and will start in Cardiff on Wednesday 22nd August and end at London’s Wembley Arena on 3rd December.

Like the biggest rock groups in the world he now only plays several nights at the biggest arenas in each city; and due to popular demand for Michael McIntyre tickets a 10th date at London’s O2 Arena has recently been added to the tour.

Michael McIntyre‘s UK & Ireland 2012 Arena Tour Dates

CARDIFF
Wed 22nd Aug – Wed 29th Aug
MOTORPOINT ARENA CARDIFF

NOTTINGHAM
Mon 3rd SEPT – Sat 8th Sept
CAPITAL FM ARENA NOTTINGHAM

BIRMINGHAM
Fri 14th Sept & Sat 15th Sept
Mon 17th Sept – Sat 22nd Sept
THE NIA BIRMINGHAM

LONDON
Wed 26th Sept – Tue 2nd Oct
Wednesday 3rd Oct – new date added
Thurs 4th Oct – Sat 6th Oct
O2 Arena

SHEFFIELD
Wed 10th Oct – Sat 13th Oct
MOTORPOINT ARENA SHEFFIELD

BELFAST
Wed 17th Oct – Sat 20th Oct
ODYSSEY ARENA BELFAST

MANCHESTER
Wed 24th Oct – Mon 29th Oct
MANCHESTER ARENA

GLASGOW
Sat 3rd Nov – Wed 7th Nov
GLASGOW SECC

NEWCASTLE
Fri 9th Nov – Mon 12th Nov
METRO RADIO ARENA NEWCASTLE

DUBLIN
Fri 16th Nov – Sat 19th Nov
THE O2 DUBLIN

LIVERPOOL
Thu 22nd Nov – Sat 24th Nov
ECHO ARENA LIVERPOOL

LONDON
Wed 28th Nov – Mon 3rd Dec
LONDON WEMBLEY

Doug Stanhope - Before Turning The Gun On Himself - Free DVD Competition

Doug Stanhope’s new DVD, Before Turning The Gun On Himself was recorded in Salt Lake City, UT at The Complex on July 19, 2011 and is released amidst a UK tour through March & April finishing with a sold out show on Saturday 21st April at London’s Hammersmith Apollo.

The DVD comes complete with a bonus CD of the entire show.

Buzzin Media Free Comedy Competition

Enter our free competition for a chance to win a copy of Doug Stanhope’s new DVD, Before Turning The Gun On Himself.

All you need to do is answer the following question:

What UK TV show has Doug Stanhope appeared?

a.    Screenwipe
b.    Screen Test
c.    Top Gear

Send your entries to comps@buzzinmedia.co.uk with “Doug Stanhope Comp” in the subject line with your answer and your full address and contact telephone number.

THIS COMPETION HAS NOW CLOSED

This Buzzin Media Competition ends on 24th April, 2012. The editor will randomly choose 2 winners.

The editor’s choice is final.

Doug Stanhope’s new DVD, Before Turning The Gun On Himself is now available on Roadrunner Records.

For more information visit dougstanhope.com.

Doug Stanhope - Before Turning The Gun On Himself

American comic, Doug Stanhope releases his 10th DVD Before Turning The Gun On Himself, a staggering achievement for any stand-up comedian. But Stanhope’s observational humour isn’t exactly cut-out for television.

His style would have to be heavily sedated or censored if he were to appear on prime time television.  So much so that his cut-throat appeal may be watered down so much as to be left missing the point.

So he may not be appearing on Live At The Apollo; and if he does, viewers won’t feel the full force of Doug Stanhope brilliantly scything remarks; though he has appeared on Charlie Brooker’s Screen Wipe TV series.

Doug Stanhope’s stand up comedy is the extreme polar opposite to anything remotely politically correct, and as cutting as Frankie Boyle.

But there’s an underlying socio-political commentary to his stories and observations that align him with comedians such as Bill Hicks; and can be traced back to Lenny Bruce.

One routine in particular, on how people get hung up on ‘words’, is reminiscent of similar monologues from Hicks and Bruce.  Swear words, abusive and racist words that some find offensive is tackled head on by Stanhope as being ridiculous and meaningless.  This is laugh out loud funny stand-up comedy with sublime messages riddled all the way through it.

This is great stand up comedy, where everyone comes under the gun of hard-hitting comedy; and when Stanhope has finished gunning everyone down for being so stupid, he turns the gun on himself. He is, apparently ‘a complete fuckup’ who has abused his body so much that finds have remarked how much his piss smells!

Doug Stanhope’s new DVD, Before Turning The Gun On Himself was recorded in Salt Lake City, UT at The Complex on July 19, 2011 and is released amidst a UK tour through March & April finishing with a sold out show on Saturday 21st April at London’s Hammersmith Apollo.  The DVD comes complete with a bonus CD of the entire show.

Doug Stanhope UK Tour – Remaining Dates

March 21
Stoke-On-Trent, UK
Victoria Hall

March 22
Bournemouth, UK
Pavillion Theatre

March 23
St. Albans, UK
St Albans Arena

March 24
Canterbury, UK
Marlowe Canterbury

March 25
Milton Keynes, UK
Milton Keynes

March 27
Edinburgh, UK
Edinburgh Playhouse

March 29
Aberdeen, UK
Music Hall

March 30
Glasgow, UK
Glasgow Kings Theatre

March 31
Inverness, UK
Eden Court

April 3
Leeds, UK
City Varieties

April 4
Leicester, UK
Just The Tonic

April 7
Portsmouth, UK
Portsmouth Guildhall

April 8
Bristol, UK
Bristol Hippodrome

April 10
Cardiff, UK
St David Hall

April 11
Dartford, UK
Orchard Theatre

April 12
Southend, UK
Cliffs Pavilion

April 13
Anvil Basingstoke, UK
The Anvil

April 14
Cambridge, UK
Marlowe Canterbury

April 16
Liverpool, UK
Liverpool Philharmonic

April 17
Lincoln, UK
Engine Shed

April 18
Reading, UK
Reading Concert Hall

April 19
Dorking, UK
Dorking Halls

April 21
London, UK
Hammersmith Apollo

Tim Minchin to play The Eden Sessions

The Eden Sessions is welcoming comedy back in 2012 with musical comic Tim Minchin who will be headlining a one-off day of humour at the home of the famous Biomes on Saturday June 23.

This unique show is part of the London 2012 Festival, a spectacular 12-week nationwide celebration from 21 June and running until 9 September 2012 bringing together leading artists from across the world with the very best from the UK. Tim Minchin’s Eden Session is the first London 2012 Festival event in the South West.

Tim, who was born to Australian parents in Northampton but grew up in Perth, Western Australia, is a pianist and comic songwriter who is recognisable by his distinctive wild hair, heavy eye make-up and tendency to perform in bare feet.

His shows deal with religion, taboos and society in general and involve him performing songs and poems interspersed with short stand-up sections. He has released six albums and three live DVDs, including recordings of his most recent arena tour Tim Minchin and the Heritage Orchestra.

Tim has won a number of awards, including the prestigious Perrier Comedy Award for Best Newcomer in 2005 and the Best Music or Variety Act at the 2010 Chortle Awards.

He also wrote the music and lyrics for a stage version of Roald Dahl’s seminal novel Matilda, produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company, which is currently playing to critical acclaim at the Cambridge Theatre in London’s West End.

Comedy shows at the Eden Sessions in previous years have been headlined by Bill Bailey and Al Murray.

Martin Williams, Eden’s Marketing Director, said: “It’s great to see comedy back at the Eden Sessions and Tim Minchin is a great addition to our line-up. Like our first comedy headliner Bill Bailey, Tim combines music and stand-up to brilliant effect. He is one of the best comics around and we can’t wait to see him here.”

Tim Minchin joins dance supremo Example and grime artist Devlin (Saturday June 30), UK soul and hip-hop star Plan B (Friday July 6) and Blink-182 (Sunday July 8 – SOLD OUT) on the bill for the Eden Sessions in 2012. More acts will be announced soon.

The Eden Sessions enter their eleventh year in 2012, following an acclaimed series of gigs in 2011, featuring Brandon Flowers and Pendulum among others. Previous years have seen performances from acts including Oasis, Kasabian, Mumford & Sons, Florence and the Machine and Muse.

Eden’s Inside Track scheme returns for the 2012 Eden Sessions. Members get a guaranteed pair of tickets to each show, with seven days to decide whether to buy them before they go on general sale. As well as priority booking and the latest Sessions news, Inside Track also gives members the chance to win exclusive Eden Sessions prizes.

Tickets to the Tim Minchin Eden Session cost £35 plus booking fee.

For more information visit www.edensessions.com.

Every month, beActive will select a topical subject and digital comedy filmmakers will have just eight days to create and submit a short film based on this theme. The winning video will be chosen by beActive based on its quality, creativity and entertainment value, and will then be posted to beActive’s YouTube page.

The winner will also receive €2,000. beActive is planning for the competition to run for six months, resulting in six winning entries that will also be shown through the beActive YouTube channel.

The launch of beActive Classics follows The Digital Comedy Lab, another talent investment project from beActive. The Digital Comedy Lab offers UK and Irish comedy filmmakers the opportunity to enter feature-length mockumentary films, with the two winning projects receiving up to €50,000 each in development funding. The entry period closed on 31 January and received almost 200 applications. The 12 finalists will be announced by the end of February.

beActive’s co-founder and CEO Nuno Bernardo said:

“beActive Classics provides an amazing opportunity for future comedy production stars to have their films viewed by a wide online audience and receive a valuable cash prize to invest in their careers. Together with The Digital Comedy Lab, it illustrates beActive’s interest in finding and supporting the next generation of creative talent.”

For more information visit www.digitalcomedylab.com.

The funniest night of the decade has been set for Sunday 4th March with the announcement today of the return of Amnesty International’s Secret Policeman’s Ball.

Multi award-winners Coldplay, The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart, and comedian and actor Russell Brand will be joined by a stellar cast of fellow stars from the world of entertainment to commemorate 50 years of Amnesty International at New York’s Radio City Music Hall. It’s the first time the Ball has been held outside of the UK.

Since John Cleese and friends brought together a star-studded mix of comedians and rock stars for The Secret Policeman’s Ball in 1976, the legendary Amnesty International show has championed the right to free speech for people across the world. The New York gala event will also feature UK act Mumford & Sons, along with US stars Stephen Colbert, and Reggie Watts, joined by a host of others to help spread Amnesty International’s message to a global audience.

John Cleese, one of the pioneers behind the original Secret Policeman’s Balls, said:

“I used to think humour was a luxury, but at the last election Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert taught me it was a necessity.    The Secret Policeman’s Ball was  – and is  – a coming together of the very best comedy talent of any generation to celebrate their art, remind audiences how important free speech is, and highlight just how much vital work Amnesty International does to protect it.  I implore you to support it.”

Chris Martin of Coldplay, said:

“We are so happy to be involved with the 2012 Secret Policeman’s Ball. We have followed and supported Amnesty International – and the amazing work they do around the world in the field of human rights – for years, and it is a pleasure to be asked to contribute to such an inspiring event.”

A supporting online campaign at facebook.com/secretpoliceman  will reveal further stars of the show in the coming weeks. Top UK comedians Alexander Armstrong and Ben Miller have voiced new animations created for the campaign by leading French artist, McBess.

An audience of more than 6,000 people will gather at Radio City Music Hall to experience a one-off night of original performances, first time collaborations, unique comedy sketches and stand-up from the funniest men and women on both sides of the Atlantic.

Previous Secret Policeman’s Balls have featured some of British comedy’s most iconic sketches including Monty Python’s ‘Four Yorkshiremen’ and the famous ‘Dead Parrot’, Peter Cook’s ‘Biased Judge’ and the then unknown Rowan Atkinson’s ‘School Master’. The 2012 Ball will create new classic moments of its own with three hours of new material specially written for the landmark event.

Andy Hackman, of Amnesty International, said:

“This year’s Secret Policeman’s Ball brings together an incredible representation of the best comedians and musicians in the world. It’s humbling that they have given up their time to join us and champion the fundamental right to opinion and expression – and in doing so helping us connect with a new generation of supporters. I hope comedy and music fans in the UK will help us in making it a bad night for dictators and a good night for free speech.”

As one of the UK’s biggest names in comedy, Lee Evans is known for his high octane, energetic, and lively presence onstage. His previous DVD’s, such as Wired and Wonderful received rave reviews: and it looks like this will be no exception.

Starting the show by acknowledging his character trait of – just sometimes – sweating a little, he’s perfectly happy to be derogatory about himself and his style. Having self-branded himself as a ‘sweaty chimp boy’ before he even reaches the stage, you instantly feel there’s no ego in sight.

Evans is no stranger to area tours, and despite the fact that the largest stages in the country are provided for the use of one man, it never feels empty. His inability to stay still for any period of time means that there is likely no corner of the country’s biggest areas that hasn’t been trodden by Evans. It’s this authority he has over the stage and the audience that helps to make him a sell-out act, again and again.

While a lot of the material he pulls his jokes from is rather mundane, it’s the fast-paced, over-excited way he delivers it that helps to make him stand out from the crowd. He covers a range of topics – from getting dressed in the morning and crazy shopping experiences to the things women say and getting older.

It’s the way that many of his observations ring true in the lives of his audience that makes the material even funnier. While there are so many lines to choose from, a favourite has to be that “women never take a coat out, they don’t need one. No they’ve already got one, it’s lovely and warm…I should know, it’s called f**king mine”.

This is the kind of comedy DVD that can be seen again and again: with so much material crammed into 2 hours, it’s easy to miss those throwaway lines – and multiple viewings means there’s always something new to laugh at.

Probably most well known from his successful TV series Black Books, Dylan Moran has been entertaining audiences for over 20 years now with his very definitely un-PC stand up comedy. The experience works well in his favour, and he comes across confident and practised.

Portraying a raffish, laid back and lazy Irishman, you’d be mistaken for thinking Moran is simply going to make jokes on the smaller topics. Yet he’s quick to put you right as he launches into his first rant on the technological world – saying “you can’t put a machine that goes blip into a grocery shop – you need to talk to people”.

Starting his set with a trip round the British Isles, Moran touches on a wide range of topics – from politics and parenthood to musicians and male pride. He makes reference clever references to the situation between Ireland and Germany, then manages to seamlessly slide into his views on the pointlessness of skiing.

While he often acts the ignorant – his belief that The Archers is simply a show about people who are “very, very worried about getting their crisps to the fete on time: no wonder everybody’s hooked” – it’s obvious he’s done his research and is talking from experience. This contradiction makes gives his punch lines an extra edge that goes beyond simple one liners.

Moran flits from one subject to another, sometimes so quickly it’s hard to keep up. One moment he’s talking about the weather, then he’s onto the confusing things women do, and finally he’s talking about middle age – and all within the space of a couple of minutes.

However, despite this, the quick change is done so flawlessly that you barely notice, and even in the pauses he doesn’t lose that audience. Though he often ‘loses his thread’ – and you can actually believe that he’s just rambling instead of following a planned and practised script – he picks up quickly enough to keep you engaged.

For some intelligent comedy that can even leave you thinking once it’s finished, Dylan Moran never fails to disappoint. Yeah Yeah is out now in time for Christmas, and is well worth treating yourself to.

Rock n Roll Nerd is a light-hearted story of a young man dreaming of playing on the big stage to thousands of fans – and while you kind of know it’s coming; when Minchin reaches the end and lets us in to that fact that he’s singing about himself, the laughs are just as appreciative.

With his ability to capture the audience’s attention as he leads up towards his next piece, you can’t help but find something to laugh at – even in his old material, which has been given a new lease of life with the orchestra behind it.

He’s just as irreverent as ever, with songs like Sam’s Mum and the always popular Pope Song making an appearance. As he launches into the latter piece, a cheer goes up – proving that it’s still a firm favourite with Minchin’s audience.

Tim Minchin has a great skill for making his audience both nervous about where he is going, as well as to keep them anticipating what he will say. Even from the comfort of the sofa, you can feel the strain the audience is going through as he brings out a copy of the Qur’an, places it next to a copy of Harry Potter and quite calmly discusses the significance of burning books.

Daring the audience seems to be a game to Minchin, as can be heard in Cont, where on first playing he seems to insult every possible minority group possible, leaving you feeling slightly uncomfortable when it reaches the end. However, as always, Minchin manages to alleviate any fears after revealing the true title of the song is not ‘Cont’, but in fact ‘Context’.

However, it’s not only irreverence and smart gags that make up the show. His closing number, White Wine in the Sun in tear-jerkingly beautiful, and as he quite rightly says, he gets trouble from his audience if he doesn’t play it.

Although it may not quite be a DVD for family viewing over the Christmas period, if you need a break and some light-hearted disrespect, Tim Minchin and the Heritage Orchestra is perfect viewing.