WTF: Weekly Trivia File

• Omid Djalili doesn’t like the lack of showmanship in stand-up. ‘Every time I watched stand-up my sense of art and creativity was outraged,’ he says. ‘I’d shoot a cat out of my backside every night if I could make it work in the budget.'

• Adrian Edmondson is planning a new project – based on the sado-masochistic tendencies of composer Percy Grainger. The comic said: ‘He was a bizarre man, who had a prodigious talent but was very peculiar. He was obsessed with S&M and would flagellate himself, then run to the Royal Albert Hall to play a piano concerto with blood running down his back under his shirt. I’m working on a project in my head about him. I’m not sure what form it will take yet, whether it’s for stage or screen.’

• It was a moment of pure slapstick you might expect from Lee Evans… but this time he was the victim. A waiter brining a tray of coffee to the comic and a pal in Edinburgh’s Balmoral Hotel tripped, sending drinks everywhere. But one onlooker said Evans was the perfect gentlemen in his response: ‘All he was worried about was the well-being of the waiter. He helped him clean up the table and even checked his arms for burns.’

• Scott Capurro admits he has a secret crush on Gordon Brown. ‘I met him at the – snore – the Hay Festival,’ he says. ‘We shook hands and said hello. He's got a very strong grip, which made me tumescent. He's also mastered a gorgeous smile.’

• Never fall asleep on the front row of a comedy club:
  

• The New Jersey town of Hightstown is hosting a ‘Sarcasm Comedy Competition’ next month. The pay-to-play night is a really good idea (do we win?)

• Two fans of Alan Carr have presented him with a box of cupcakes – depicting his famously wonky teeth. When he performed in Carlisle, Emma Barnes and Joanna Coleman took the treats backstage and left them with staff. And they were delighted when Carr came on stage and started talking about them. Emma, who runs a company called BabyCakesm said: ‘I knew he’d see the funny side of it. I was actually more nervous about what he would say about the taste to the audience.’ In the end, told them: ‘I’ve eaten the one with teeth on and it was lovely.’

• Agent Brett Vincent has apologised to Lewis Schaffer after accusing him of joke theft via Twitter. Schaffer accepted the apology, tweeting: ‘Brett Vincent is a top man’.

• Tweets of the week:
  Tony Cowards (@TonyCowards): Bought a book on the history of the Hell's Angels, it's good but there's too many chapters.
  H Anthony Hildebrand (@hahildebrand): What happens in quicksand, stays in quicksand.
  Tara Flynn(@TaraFlynn): Wow. I hadn't seen T4 in months. Wow. It's like CBeebies, with Frasier.

SOURCES: Belper News, Sunday Mercury, The Scotsman, The Independent, YouTube, New Jersey Times, Scotsman, Carlisle News & Star, Chortle, Twitter

Published: 19 Aug 2011