Taking the Mac

SOME consider Michael McIntyre “the breakout comedy sensation of the 21st Century”. He’s certainly come a long way in a short space of time. In just 12 months, he went from playing to tiny audiences in comedy clubs above pubs, to selling out Wembley, the O2, fronting his own BBC show and being responsible for the fastest-selling comedy DVD of all time. And here, his Hello Wembley set, is a masterclass.

Surrealist comedian Ross Noble had a typically quick-witted retort when informed that Sandi Toksvig was the latest comic to have a dig at McIntyre. “You really have to have done something wrong to get a rise out of an Icelandic dwarf,” he said.

To say that the comedy circuit has taken umbrage at McIntyre’s rise to the very top of the comedy tree is an understatement.

Everybody from Vic Reeves to Frankie Boyle to Toksvig, who used the metaphor “as thin as Michael McIntyre’s stand-up act” on a recent edition of Radio Four’s News Quiz, has had a pop.

Noble, who admires McIntyre, knows a lot of people have a problem with McIntyre.

“The main reason for that is, number one, jealousy, because he’s the biggest thing around,” he says. “The problem McIntyre has is this perceived wisdom that you have to do years of craft, honing it, earning your spurs. He came from nowhere and was an unashamed crowdpleaser, giving the audience exactly what they want. There’s a real skill in that. You would never see him with an undercurrent or side.”

Of course, McIntyre will be the first to say that it took him a decade of hard graft to become an overnight success.

Born in 1976, in South London, to a dancer and a comedy writer, McIntyre did his first open-mic spot in 2001, having dropped out of a biology degree at Edinburgh University.

He was nominated for the Perrier award in 2003, but it was in 2006 that his star really began to rise. Oddly, it was Prince Charles who introduced the world to McIntyre’s work when he first booked Tonight’sTV By Steve Pratt email: steve.pratt@nne.co.uk him for The Royal Variety Performance in 2006 and then for his televised 60th birthday party two years later.

On the back of these superb performances, McIntyre’s 2008 DVD release became the fastest-selling debut stand-up DVD of all time, selling more than 650,000 copies.

His performances on the BBC’s Live at the Apollo were the standout turns, and when the Beeb decided to take its comedy vehicle on the road, McIntyre was first choice to take the helm.

ANYONE who saw him on Strictly Come Dancing would probably argue that John Sergeant wasn’t much of a mover, but when it comes to travelling, he’s first class.

The political commentator and correspondent certainly makes an informative tour guide in the two-part documentary John Sergeant on Tracks of Empire, as he learns more about one of the legacies of the British empire – India’s railway network.

His 3,000-mile journey reveals that the railway isn’t just the lifeblood of the country, but also provides an insight into its history.

He begins his trip in Varanasi, where he finds out how the construction of the Dufferin Bridge caused Victorian ideals of technology and ingenuity to clash with ancient religious principles.

It wouldn’t be the last time someone objected to the train – as he approaches the Pakistani border, Sergeant reflects on how no less a person than Mahatma Gandhi denounced the railway as evil.

HOLLYWOOD star and director Clint Eastwood is a huge jazz fan and to prove it, he’s co-produced three films with Arena – profiles of Tony Bennett and Johnny Mercer, and now Dave Brubeck: In His Own Sweet Way.

Brubeck’s now in his 90th year and the documentary charts how his career began 65 years ago with revolutionary experiments that would come to be called cool jazz. He was the first jazz musician to appear on the cover of Time Magazine and had one of the biggest popular hits in jazz history with Take Five, a tune as familiar today as it was in 1959.