The week's comedy trivia

• ‘Trying to examine how a joke works is like trying to nail a puddle to a wall.’ Armando Iannucci

• Daniel Radcliffe claims the Harry Potter cast and crew are forever encouraging him to become a stand-up because of the gags he cracks between takes. But he says: ‘I could never do stand-up because it's that thing of having to get up on stage, and, out of every ten jokes you tell, nine of them have to get a really good response. I don't think I could do that. If I didn't get a big laugh every time, I might wither.’

• Coincidence or design? Opening for US comic Susie Essman in London on Sunday night: Jeff Green. Name of her character’s husband in Curb Your Enthusiasm: Jeff Greene.

• Welcome to our new feature, Stupid Things Ricky Gervais Says That Are Clearly A Joke But Which Somehow Get Reported As Real Facts By Idiots. Part 1: He doesn’t clean his teeth any more to save the environment. ‘I don't leave the tap running when I clean my teeth, which annoys me because I like to see it running,’ he said – as a joke. ‘So what I do now is just not clean my teeth. It's perfect.’ The Sun, and others, reported it completely straight.

• Noel Fielding spent the day drinking with Courtney Love to celebrate her 43rd birthday this week. But she reportedly ‘trashed’ her five-star London hotel room afterwards. Oh dear.

• During previews of his Edinburgh Fringe show Wine, James Dowdeswell has been passing round free plonk. But he was surprised to find most the audience turn it down at a gig last week. Turns out many of them were recovering alcoholics on a confidence-building night out. But one of them took a glass nonetheless, declaring: ‘I'm allowed a drink - I'm only a smack addict.’

• Griff Rhys Jones will take part in a pro-celebrity yachting race at the Cowes regatta on Tuesday.

• Stupid Things Ricky Gervais Says That Are Clearly A Joke But Which Somehow Get Reported As Real Facts By Idiots. Part 2. He’s making a buddy cop film with Chris Rock called Badge Buddies in which he plays a homosexual. Rock says it’s ‘Rush Hour meets Shakespeare In Love’. One online critic got especially upset: ‘Badge Buddies is the most ludicrously cliched, trite sounding picture of all time,’ moaned Noah Sanders on Filmwad. ‘Truthfully, I have faith in both of these highly talented comedians, but I worry that neither have made the sort of splashes they've wanted in recent films, and maybe they're just trying to rake in a little cash and this was the least career-damaging money-maker they could find.’ Or maybe, just mary. IT'S NOT REAL.

• Oh, and Gervais has also denied that Posh and Becks will be in the finale of Extras, contrary to other made-up reports. ‘They haven't been asked and they won't be asked,’ his website says sniffily.

• Stand-up and Comedy Store Player Andy Smart ran with the bulls at Pamplona last weekend – for the 21st time. Here’s the evidence…

  

SOURCES: Chortle, Parade, Chortle, The Sun, Daily Mirror, Glasgow Herald, BYM News (whatever that stands for), Entertainmentwise.com, RickyGervais.com, Chortle

Published: 13 Jul 2007