A tight 5: January 17

APPLICATIONS have opened for this year;'s So You Think You're Funny competition for new comedians. Now in its its 27th year, and sponsored by Fosters, the competition is open to anyone over 18 who has not performed regularly before June 2013. The winner receives £5,000 and a trip to Montreal’s Just for Laughs festival. Apply here.

RUSSELL BRAND has launched a fund to help people suffering drug and alcohol abuse. The Give It Up Fund, which will be managed by Comic Relief, will award grants of up to £5,000 to groups run by recovering addicts. Brand said: 'With this fund, we have the opportunity to perform a kind of social alchemy, turning hapless – often smelly – junkies into helpful busy bodies, pottering about and contributing.'

THE OPENING episode of Andy Samberg's Golden-Globe-winning police sitcom Brooklyn Nine Nine attracted 1.1million viewers to E4 at at 9pm - more than double the slot average.

COMIC ACTOR Dave Madden, who played agent Reuben Kincaid on hit Seventies sitcom The Partridge Family has died in Florida at the age of 82. He started work as a nightclub comic and was also part of the ensemble on the Laugh-In series; while his CV also includes roles in Bewitched, Happy Days and the sitcom Alice.

THE second series of Jim Jefferies's US sitcom Legit will launch on FXX at 10pm on February 26, the station has announced. The show will lead into Ali G: Rezurection at 10.30pm, a run of all the episodes of Da Ali G Show, with Sacha Baron Cohen filming new introductions to the Channel 4 originals.

Published: 17 Jan 2014