Comedy historian Robert Ross pays tribute to some of the finest and funniest, but often overlooked, names in showbiz

2026 sees the return of Dawn French in a sitcom!

The world according to…

7 JANUARY

Dawn French and Mark Heap team up for a sitcom that deals with Parkinson’s disease, insurance fraud and intimacy in later life…

WHEN she first began her career, Joan Bakewell was dubbed “the thinking man’s crumpet” by comedy writer Frank Muir. Such a comment made nowadays would have seen him succumb to “cancel culture”. Back t