Sharks or critics, who's worse?

WTF: Weekly Trivia File

‘The British accent will not only imply sincerity, but also intelligence and astute analysis. But what it's actually disguising is immaturity and outright rudeness.’ John Oliver.

A dozen comics have prepared for the Fringe by facing a hostile audience… of sharks. Figuring nothing the festival could throw at them could be scarier than coming face-to-face with the predators, the Stand-based acts, including Lee Camp, Sally-Anne Hayward and Dave Fulton plunged into the shark pool at Deep Sea World in North Queensferry. ‘The great thing about swimming with sharks is they can't hold a pen and write a bad review,’ Fulton said.

Many of the thousands of Fringe shows seem beyond parody, especially if you venture in to the abysses of student theatre. The new website fakefringe invites you to spot the spoof among the genuine Edinburgh offerings.

What is an award at the Fringe really worth? Comic Robert White is about to find out as he's selling he Malcolm Hardee Award For Comic Originality he scooped last year on eBay…

Tim Minchin was in Montreal last week making a name for himself at the Just For Laughs festival. Only he was introduced twice as British, and the Montreal Gazette reviewed him as ‘Eric’. So be sure to look out for British comic Eric Minchin, he’s great.

Viewers of the CBBC show Pet Squad should look out for some comedy circuit in-jokes snuck into the script by creator Caimh McDonnell, himself a stand-up. The police chief is named after one-line king Gary Delaney, and the supervillain peacock is called ‘The Fabulous Jonathan' in honour of flamboyantly camp comic Jonathan Mayor. The news reporter was named after Sarah Millican, but the name had to be changed to Sarah Pudding as she got too famous. As for where they got the idea for Bennett the bull, a critic who becomes so enraged when he sees bad art he goes on a destructive rampage… who knows?

Simon Bird doesn’t play the toughest of characters in The Inbetweeners; and it turns out that he, and the rest of the cast, got intimidated by a more laddy brand of bullying British tourists while filming in Crete. Bird explained: ‘We were just walking along the beach after filming, and we had a football. This group of quite hard-looking lads walked past and one said, “Over here, mate. On me head.” I nervously kicked it his way and he just walked off with it! Then one of his mates saw we were off the TV and he came back and gave us the ball and wanted his photo taken. That was just us being bullied in our real lives…’

Stephen Merchant says his 6ft 7in frame can make sex difficult, saying: ‘If they're down there and I'm up here, it's a bit tricky... It's lonely.’

Tweets of the week
Milton Jones (@themiltonjones): Apparently rap music started when someone played pass the parcel backwards
Matt Lucas (@RealMattLucas): Last night I dreamt I went to a big party at Elton John's house. Which I have actually done anyway so it was a bit of a waste of a dream.
Andy Dutton (@Andy_Dutton ): I've just dressed two carp up in suits and taken a photo of them. It was surprisingly easy - like shooting fish in apparel.

SOURCES: Montreal Gazette, STV, Chortle, thejohnfleming.wordpress.com, Chortle, Chortle, YouTube, The Sun, Alan Carr: Chatty Man, Twitter

Published: 5 Aug 2011