GagSlag gossip round-up

• Zharmakhan Tuyakbai, the leader of the opposition National Social-Democratic Party in Kazakhstan, says that if he ever sees Borat creator Sacha Baron Cohen ‘I'll hit him in the face.'

• Meatloaf once considered a career as a stand-up, saying: 'I actually did do some stand-up but without any jokes - it was all improvised - and I was actually very funny. I did it four times about ten years ago. I just told stories about things that had really happened to me. If they didn't like it I didn't care, but luckily they did and they all laughed

• ‘Loveable’ might not be the first adjective that springs to mind when you think of Jimmy Carr, but he actually says: ‘There’s a certain sense in which being loved by an audience is hugely important to me.’

• The lead story on the gossip website Daily Snack yesterday repeated sister paper Daily Star’s front page splash about how Russell Brand had been fired from BBC radio because he was ‘too wild’ on his 6 Music show. ‘News of the sacking sent shockwaves around the BBC because he had been tipped for a move to Radio 2,’ the site excitedly reported. ‘They couldn’t handle all the insanity that goes on around Russell. He is just a little bit too edgy and unpredictable for the BBC.’ Second story on Daily Snack yesterday: ‘Controversial comic Russell Brand is joining Radio 2’ because he’d done such a ‘brilliant job’ on 6 Music. Meanwhile a MediaGrauniad headline about the story accidentally referred to him as Russell ‘Bland’.

• Meanwhile Russell’s BBC 6 Music co-host Matt Morgan said that at a gig in in Dartford, Kent: ‘He went out on stage with socks down his trousers.’ You would never have got that with Sir Jimmy Young.

• Matt Lucas and David Walliams had to be rushed to the National Television Awards bash on motorbikes to pick up their Best Comedy gong after their live show over-ran at Hammersmith Apollo.

• Graham Chapman liked to experiment with cooking, serving up the likes of lamb stuffed with salmon. Eugh.

• Australian broadcaster ABC has axed its satirical show The Glass House after 500 episodes. Oh, sorry, not ‘axed’. ‘We're not axing the show,’ station exec Courtney Gibson is keen to stress. ‘But we're not going to commission it next year.’

• Shazia Mirza has been comparing herself to Richard Pryor – well, in one respect at least. She says her decision not to focus entirely on Muslim jokes in her stand-up was ‘a bit like Richard Pryor's moment of revelation’ when he tried to stop emulating Bill Cosby and be his own comic.

Sources: Malaysia Star, Life Style Extra, The Times, Daily Snack/ Media Guardian, The Sun, Time Out, The Sun, The Melbourne Age, The Independent

Published: 3 Nov 2006