This week's comedy news
Not for the first time, the US comedian Sarah Silverman has become embroiled in a political row, after a Democratic representative retweeted her stated desire to "anally probe" the governor of Wisconsin – in response to his having signed off new anti-abortion legislation. Governor Scott Walker's law would require women considering abortions to have ultrasound scans. Silverman tweeted that "I'd very much like to anally probe @govwalker each time he needs to make an 'informed decision'" – a comment retweeted by Colorado politician Joe Salazar. At that, Republicans cried foul: "It's fine to disagree with Gov Walker," fulminated a Colorado Republican Committee spokesman in a party press release, "but it's not OK for Joe Salazar to call for the governor to be raped. Rep Salazar's tweet is demeaning and offensive to victims everywhere."
Speaking of offensive, the Parents Television Council of America – I don't know about you, but I'm getting a Mary Whitehouse vibe here – has claimed that television is increasingly making light of sexual exploitation. Shows including Family Guy, Glee and Two and a Half Men are rapped for making light of (for example) child molestation, sexual harassment, sex trafficking, prostitution and pornography – according to the organisation's recent research.
Back in the UK, Stewart Lee has been doing what Stewart Lee does, criticising the comedy industry for "elitism", and diagnosing a "crisis of social mobility of standup comedians". Interviewed by Jay Richardson for the Chortle website, Lee claims poorer performers are being "priced out" of success, and accuses the BBC of letting powerful agents dictate its Edinburgh Fringe coverage. In counterpoint to this broadside, lager brand Foster's has announced an extension to its sponsorship of the Edinburgh Comedy award, which will now run until at least 2016. The deal, according to Foster's brand director, "provides a solid and lasting foundation for our marketing ambitions". Hooray!
Elsewhere in comedy, hawk-eyed Guardian readers will already know the door has been opened to Frankie Boyle's return to the BBC – but that his incorrigible (and usually unpleasant) tweeting remains a barrier. You'll also have read that former Monty Python producer Mark Forstater has won his claim (reported here last December) against the sketch team for increased royalties from the Spamalot musical. Meanwhile, Channel 4 has announced three more online miniseries under the Comedy Blaps banner – featuring up-and-comers Claudia O'Doherty, Jamie Demetriou and James Kirk. The Beeb has commissioned a new comedy, about dog-lovers, from Getting On co-creators Jo Scanlan and Vicki Pepperdine, and has already green-lit a second series of Count Arthur Strong, whose new comedy show launched on Monday night. And in the US, comedian Kevin Hart's new concert film Let Me Explain has become the second-biggest standup movie ever, after grossing $10.1m on its opening weekend.
And elsewhere, check out a glowing review in the New York Times, of all places, of Lenny Henry's performance in US playwright August Wilson's Fences in the West End. Truly, Henry's rebirth as a credible actor goes from strength to strength …
Best of the Guardian's comedy coverage
• "It didn't catch fire with the audience but it wasn't what you could call a flop" – the BBC's comedy chief calls time on Ben Elton's The Wright Way.
• "In comedy, Radio 4 has become for BBC1 and BBC2 like the youth academy of a major football club" – Mark Lawson on radio-to-TV transfers.
• But: "the count remain[s] pretty much a one-trick, slapstick pony" – John Crace is unconvinced by the TV transfer of Radio 4 fave Count Arthur Strong.
• "Next, I'm going to take a poem and turn it into a car" – Graham Linehan interviewed in the Observer.
• "We adore Alan. I don't know any son or daughter of Norfolk who doesn't" – Norwich native Patrick Barkham on the city's association with Alan Partridge.
One to watch
For those of you who can't wait until Tenacious D's musical comedy festival this autumn, the Mighty Boosh reformed last week, after three years, to accompany the US singer-songwriter Beck on stage at the Barbican. Here's a video of their performance of Beck's song We All Wear Cloaks:
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Best of our readers' comments
Much discussion under our news story about the axing of Ben Elton's unloved sitcom The Wright Way – most of it slagging off Elton, predictably enough, and some of it interrogating the idea that Twitter reaction should be a factor in BBC programming. On that subject, Genevastar argues that:
There's a simple way of preventing new programmes being 'crucified' by social media – TV executives could stop having collective and individual cardiac arrests over every know-all who 'tweets' their opinion ('boring, cack, a steaming heap', etc) while the first episode's still being aired. And the poor, benighted writers, for whom I feel extremely sorry even if I don't enjoy a particular script of theirs, could avoid torturing themselves by reading them so often. How about listening a little more to those of us (a dying breed, no doubt, but viewers and licence-payers nonetheless) who don't consider the world's cultural, political or social viewpoint to be set in stone on the basis of a few thousand 140-character insults?
Well said. Elsewhere, under Mark Lawson's piece about Radio 4's contribution to TV comedy, our readers argued the toss about that one-man pot of comedy Marmite, Count Arthur Strong. He has his haters, but most of you think Steve Delaney's character has earned his TV transfer – including LondonSpy:
Interesting that the Count has been transferred to TV – anyone who has listened to Feedback over the years will know how strongly it divides the radio audience (most posters below are on the same side of the divide) so it is a bold/foolish/odd choice. I've cried with laughter at the radio show, more than anything else I've heard in years. If he's a throwback, it's to the tradition of verbal play that runs through northern comedy, from Dawson and Dodd to Evans, Randle and Wilton. But I quite understand that others can't stand him.
On the same tack, thegreatfatsby writes:
I listen at work to daytime Radio 4. Most of the comedy is cobblers. Awful. I cringe through nearly all of it. The Count, however, had me in stitches. In one memorable exchange, he managed to refer to hors d'oeuvres as 'a whore's duvet'. Made my day.
• This article was corrected on 23 July 2013 because an earlier version of the article called Norwich a town. Norwich is a city.
