Almost everyone you might want to see doing stand-up releases their solo show this week: Ricky Gervais, Peter Kay and sidekick Dave Spikey, Al Murray, Eddie Izzard, Jo Brand, Johnny Vegas, Billy Connolly and Jeff Green are among them. Only Harry Hill and Rich Hall are missing.
With the two current genius sitcoms, The Office and Phoenix Nights, providing a Blur v Oasis north-south divide for our times, these tapes prove that creating a great sitcom doesn't necessarily make for brilliant stand-up tapes. Kay and Spikey, splendid as Brian Potter's fall-guy Jerry St Clair in the series, are both old hands in northern clubs and provide the kind of turns that aren't a million miles from those lampooned in the series, except that this time you're laughing with them rather than at them. They don't mind using old jokes but are clever enough to make them freshly funny.
Gervais takes a more imaginative approach, with Animals, loosely themed as "Life on Earth - the bits David Attenborough left out", but mostly just rambling around subjects in search of a joke - and usually finding one. His props are diverse, ranging from the Bible to a book on gay animals complete with projected illustrations.
He comes over like David Brent's smarter, less devious brother. Hints of a deprived childhood peep out - holidays in a caravan in Bognor sound every bit as grim as Wernham Hogg.
