Remarkably you still cannot buy the entire series of Not the Nine O’Clock News on DVD, but you can find the Best Of compilations on Amazon.

Despite working almost non-stop since leaving the show (he appears in new BBC Three sitcom Pramface later this month), he still seems somewhat bitter about the affair which saw his former friends turn on him and happily have him replaced back in 2002.

Whether Deayton’s extra-marital exploits brought the show into disrepute or not is another matter; it seems that he was also taking criticism during the show from Hislop and Merton for pay packet that was the same size as their own…

‘For years I got stick for the amount I earned. I was often tempted to say, “If you cast your gaze to either side of me, there are others earning the same.”

Now by Paul Merton’s own admission, he and Hislop were instrumental in removing Deayton from his role on HIGNFY; he famously recalled on Parkinson that they had “stabbed him in the front”. So which one of them was it that would “wander in at four in the afternoon of that recording, and other people have been working on it for four days”?

Deayton isn’t saying,  but he is happy to reveal that despite appearances he always got on well with his co-stars, particularly Merton.

“Certainly Paul has rewritten history a bit in terms of our relationship. We were always the last ones out of the bar on a Thursday night. We were clapping each other on the back, saying how wonderful the show was. ‘A phenomenon – it’s a phenomenon,’ Paul always used to say. So, yeah, we always got on very well.”

It’s a fascinating interview, of which this is just the brief glimpse…

Throwing a few swear words into a vaguely amusing tale doesn’t suddenly make it hilarious. Sadly plenty of comics who followed Connolly missed this key point.

But Connolly is always engaging; he’s had a great career as a comedian, actor and husband to a clinical psychologist (which I’m sure you knew; everyone else does) but over the past few days he seems to be going through something of a rough time.

Two shows have been cut short by hecklers, making comments that the Big Yin might once have taken in his stride. Making a stand-up comeback at 69 is a brave decision, of course, and it might well prove that Connolly is past playing to large audiences.

Commenting on a local newspaper, one audience member observed:

“He is a professional and has surely had hecklers like this before without walking off. When he left the stage he wasn’t smiling and didn’t thank the audience for attending.”

Now what is interesting about this is that Connolly appears to be recycling old material, which is pretty disappointing – assuming the audience weren’t expecting this.

So what next?

The best solution would seem to be for Billy Connolly to cancel his tour and reschedule into a series of smaller venues where true fans can pay for an evening of recollections and old material. Basically, they should be getting what  they’re paying for. As things stand, his website is listing a continuation of the tour but if things carry on like this a rethink is most definitely needed.

To give some encouragement to the old guy – whose travelling-on-my-trike shows are always must-see TV, here’s a bit of classic material for today’s Comedy Gold entry.

Remember when they were funny?

From the 1989 series of A Bit of Fry & Laurie…

A perfect example of British Comedy Gold.

Frankie Boyle - his pussy isnt haunted. Yet.

That’s exactly what Frankie Boyle did, taking his outspoken standup show to extremes with the Tramadol Nights (originally titled Deal With This, Retards) series on Channel 4 which was the subject of a stream of complaints for racism and insensitivity to disability and mental illness.

Boyle made a mistake in making his comedy hateful. Anyone who reads his (sadly occasional) newsletters will see that he is a man who is dissatisfied with inequality. So why spew bile like this?

“Jordan and Peter Andre are still fighting each other over custody of Harvey – eventually one of them will lose and have to keep him.”

“I have a theory about the reason Jordan married a cage fighter – she needed a man strong enough to stop Harvey from fucking her.”

It’s pretty sick, isn’t it? Yeh, you might chuckle, you might hate Jordan or that idiot Alex Reid – but that kid has had a pretty bad life so far, regardless of who his mother is.

So it should come as no surprise that in the middle of “developing” a new show (or in this case, “arguing over the tone, content and format”) Frankie Boyle’s Rehabilitation Programme (a pilot for which was recorded last year) Boyle has been axed by Channel 4.

In concept, the show seems fine, featuring celebrities and members of the public tackling Boyle over his controversial rules. Channel 4’s head of comedy Shane Allen described it as “….very much like Parkinson or Wogan, but with paedo jokes.

“It’s him [Boyle] in a studio, riffing off the audience a bit, with some people challenging what he says.”

Based on that precis, it sounds pretty rough; it should come as no surprise that Channel 4 has dropped the show.

The question is, what next for Frankie Boyle?

Buoyed by the success of the excellent The One Ronnie and sensing an opportunity to bring fans of a 1980s comedy to the channel in a wave of nostalgia, this was a vehicle for Lenny Henry to revisit his traditional stand-up and characters recipe that served him so well in the past… until he went too far and got obsessed by Delbert Wilkins.

If you’re of the right age, you might recall how the occasionally funny The Lenny Henry Show degenerated from being a reasonable comedy showcase into being a sitcom about a self-obsessed pirate DJ. Somehow the BBC commissioned two series of this risible crap – but then they quite literally threw money at all sorts of rubbish in those days, so this shouldn’t come as much of a surprise.

So The One Lenny Henry reverted to the original format of the Midlander’s original shows, but sadly much of it is stand-up, something which Henry is apparently congenitally awful at. His character comedy – Wilkins aside – is far better, allowing him to get into costume and do some acting.

Acting is where Henry seems to have succeeded most in his career. Chef! was years ahead of its time, and if anything that this very likeable comic has done is overdue a revisit it isn’t his stand-up routine, it’s the show that pre-empted the rise of Jamie Oliver and other celebrity chefs. Meanwhile Henry proved his acting ability by starring in Othello at the West Yorkshire Playhouse… which again begs the question that I’ve been teetering upon throughout this piece.

Why bother with the stand-up? Henry being multi-talented is fine, but he really should at least get some decent material. I’m sure this isn’t a race/culture thing; Lenny Henry has always effortlessly appealed to a multi-cultural audience. No, this is down to poor writing, something that is highlighted in the difference in quality between stand-up and sketches in The One Lenny Henry. It’s the same difference that can be found in most of the early episodes of The Lenny Henry Show.

It’s also the difference that can be seen when you compare The One Lenny Henry with Big and Small, the children’s show about two furry characters that you will find most mornings on the CBeebies channel. Here, Lenny is excellent, portraying two characters with humour, warmth and the odd touch of pathos.

At times it is funnier than his stand-up.

To set the scene: Victor Meldrew (Richard Wilson), wife Margaret (Annette Crosbie) and friend Mrs Warboys (Doreen Mantle) are sat in a newly repaired Honda while stuck in a traffic jam to go to the zoo…

Featuring the voice of former Python Eric Idle (who of course wrote and performed the theme tune), this clip is from the episode “The Beast in the Cage” from the 1992 series of the show, currently available on DVD either individually or as part of a boxset.

Hope you like the redesign. Full service will be resumed in the next few days…

So the British Comedy Awards 2011 have been and gone; it was a pleasure to see some different names thrown about this time around, and better still to see Sarah Millican recognised for her hard work and easy Geordie charm.

We covered some of the nominated categories last week, in which we made a few predictions. I’m delighted to say we made some good calls:

• Best comedy panel show: Shooting Stars, BBC

(We called it!)

• Best sitcom: Twenty Twelve, BBC

(We said: Peep Show)

• Best TV comedy actor: Darren Boyd, Spy, Sky

(We called it!)

• Best TV comedy actress: Miranda Hart, Miranda, BBC

(We said Dawn French. We were right, regardless)

• King or Queen of Comedy: Sarah Millican

(Wye aye man, we called it reeght!)

So what about the rest of the winners and losers? It’s an odd bunch with HIGNFY being rightly rewarded but in the oddly named The British Comedy Academy lifetime achievement award, as if the show itself is the performer. One can’t help but feel that they should have put a bit more work into that.

• Best new comedy programme: Fresh Meat, Channel 4
• Best comedy entertainment programme: Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle, BBC
• Best sketch show: Horrible Histories, CBBC
• Best comedy drama: Psychoville, BBC
• Best comedy entertainment personality: Graham Norton, The Graham Norton Show, BBC
• Best comedy breakthrough artist: Dan Skinner, Shooting Stars, BBC
• Best male television comic: Stewart Lee, Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle, BBC
• Best female television comic: Victoria Wood, Victoria Wood’s Angina Monologues, Sky
• The Writers’ Guild of Great Britain award: Armando Iannucci
• The British Comedy Academy outstanding achievement award: The Inbetweeners
• The British Comedy Academy lifetime achievement award: Have I Got News For You
• The Channel 4 award for special contribution to comedy: Lee Evans

All in all, a jolly night’s entertainment, exactly what you might expect from the event.

However, we’re concerned that this is the second year on the trot not to feature the Ronnie Barker award for writing. Disappointing.

The shortlist has been published for a while now, but who should win?

Best Comedy Entertainment Programme

Shortlist: Alan Carr: Chatty Man (Channel 4); An Idiot Abroad (Sky1); Harry Hill’s TV Burp (ITV1); Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle (BBC Two).

All of the categories are tough, and traditionally this would be a split between Harry Hill’s TV Burp and Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle. However, the former has become less accomplished of late while the latter show is overdue an award, so Stewart Lee it is!

Best Sitcom

Shortlist: Friday Night Dinner (Channel 4); Miranda (BBC Two); Peep Show (C4); Twenty Twelve (BBC Four).

Frankly all of the above have been less than hilarious, even Peep Show‘s seventh series. It might have been better if Not Going Out was given its due finally, but failing that we’ll go with Peep Show.

Best Comedy Panel Show

Shortlist: Celebrity Juice (ITV2); Have I Got News for You (BBC One); Shooting Stars (BBC Two); Would I Lie to You? (BBC One).

As Celebrity Juice features little in the way of laughs, it’s a surprise that A Question of Sport isn’t also shortlisted. While Have I Got News for You is a personal favourite and Would I Lie to You? gets better each week, as a northern lad it simply has to be Shooting Stars, simply to stick it to the increasingly out of touch BBC commissioning executives.

Best TV Comedy Actor

Shortlist: Darren Boyd (Spy, Sky1); Hugh Bonneville (Twenty Twelve, BBC Four); Hugh Dennis (Outnumbered, BBC One); Jack Whitehall (Fresh Meat, Channel 4).

Jack Whitehall has been surprisingly good playing himself in Fresh Meat, but Darren Boyd probably deserves this paperweight gong.

Best TV Comedy Actress

Shortlist: Dawn French (Psychoville, BBC Two); Tamsin Greig (Friday Night Dinner, Channel 4); Miranda Hart (Miranda, BBC Two); Claire Skinner (Outnumbered, BBC One).

Good god, Miranda Hart aside this is a great selection of actresses (as opposed to “Mirandas”) and as much as I adore Tamsin Greig it would have to be Dawn French’s marvellous Psychoville turns.

King or Queen of Comedy

Shortlist: Jo Brand, Miranda Hart, Sarah Millican, David Mitchell, Graham Norton, Jack Whitehall.

Do you know who really deserves this? Not Jo effing Brand, that’s for sure. This category is open to public voting and as much as Miranda Hart, Graham Norton and David Mitchell are popular (I’ve yet to meet anyone who likes Jo Brand – she clearly has a great publicist/agent) I would really love to see Sarah Millican win.

Catch the British Comedy Awards 2011 on Channel 4 tonight, Friday 16 November, at 9.00pm. We’ll be discussing the results next week!