Great Omid Djalili interview by Jugtar at Desi Hits.

David and Richard continue to converse on all manner of subjects. Today it’s Comedians.

David Baddiel has only gone and got himself profiled over at The Guardian. Click here to have a read as he talks about The Infidel and his upcoming novel, The Death of Eli Gold.

When asked to host Fantasy Football League in 1994, David offered the position of co-host to his flatmate at the time, an upcoming comedian called Frank Skinner. The show’s set even took its design inspiration from the duo’s flat. David and Frank presented the show for the entirety of its three series run and a collection of specials interspersed throughout the 1998 World Cup.

For the Euro Cup in 1996, the pair teamed up with The Lightning Seeds to create Three Lions.

The show’s popularity spawned the pair’s next endeavor, Baddiel and Skinner Unplanned. Originally a concept developed from the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the show featured the two hosts sitting on a couch on-stage and responding to questions from the audience. To avoid the show becoming too similar to the pair’s previous outing, the unofficial rule was that there would be no discussion of football. Each episode would end with an obligatory musical number…

The pair still regularly works together and has recently signed a deal with Absolute Radio to present a series of podcasts in South Africa for the 2010 World Cup.

Some more involved religious questioning with Richard Schiff and David Baddiel in this first episode of their conversation to find the funniest religion.

Read the Times Online article on this here

With the success of The Mary Whitehouse Experience, both Baddiel and Newman found themselves at the forefront of a new popularity surge for comedy. It was the early 1990s and comedy was the new “rock and roll”. The two comic duos from The Mary Whitehouse Experience went their separate ways – Punt and Dennis creating The Imaginatively Titled Punt and Dennis Show and Baddiel and Newman forming Newman and Baddiel in Pieces.

The show, much like it’s pre-cursor, was a mixture of sketch and stand-up. Recurring sketches included Newman’s predatory, smoking jacketed Jarvis who would accidentally let slip with lude double entendres (“Now I don’t want to come over all Prince Charles… oh God!”); Safety First – Baddiel playing sadistic safety officer Brian Coat (“Now, there was no need for that to happen”); and History Today, featuring the duelling elderly academics who spouted infantile insults at each other – characters who’d first appeared on The Mary Whitehouse Experience.

Another regular contributor to the show was comedian Sean Lock. His most well remembered role in the show was Shenley Grange, the belligerent nature documentary maker.

In December 1993, the David Baddiel and Robert Newman became the first comedians to play Wembley with “Live in Pieces”. Although a comedic success, the duos working relationship came to an abrupt end after the tour and the comedians went their separate ways. David went on to form another comic partnership, with none other than his flat mate at the time, an upcoming comedian called Frank Skinner…

Hi guys,

The Which Religion is Funniest? Comedy Competition is picking up the pace and in case you haven’t had a chance to head over to Facebook yet and check it out, we’ve got an ace recommendation for you! Comedian, Imran Yusuf has just submitted a cracking sketch which you can find be clicking here.

David has written a piece for The Times about the controversial relationship between religion and comedy. You can find it by clicking here…

As we lead up to the release of David’s feature film, The Infidel, we’ve decided to take a look back at how he got where he is today. The best place to start is of course The Mary Whitehouse Experience.

The show began its life on BBC Radio One in 1989, running for an incredibly successful four series. The satirical sketch show matched the comic duo of Baddiel and Newman with two other up and coming comedians, Hugh Dennis and Steve Punt. The show soon moved from the radio waves to the small screen and was first broadcast on 3rd of January 1991 on BBC Two.

The Mary Whitehouse Experience was a mixture of original sketch comedy, character material and satire of current affairs and celebrity news. Among the many memorable catchphrases and reoccurring sketches, arguably the most well-known is History Today.

Shooting all four of its main stars to fame, the show ran for two series and launched David into his next project, Newman and Baddiel in Pieces. More on this next week…

Some very nice chap (with an incomprehensible name) on YouTube has uploaded a clip of David talking about his meetings with the late John Hughes on Sky Movie’s coverage of The Oscars. David even manages to fit in a small plug for The Infidel!

Hi guys,

The Infidel is going to premiere at the Hammersmith Apollo on April 8th and you can grab a ticket! David Baddiel and Omid Djalili are going to be performing as well as other special guests. Click here to grab one for yourself!

Comedians of Britain: Join our competition now!

And win a chance to perform at the premiere of ‘The Infidel’. Our application is now live and we are ready for your funniest religious joke!

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We had a very exciting morning today, with the launch of our competition Which Religion is Funniest? presented by Omid Djalili.

Comedians came and performed their religious joke which will be entered into our competition in search of the funniest religious joke. We should be uploading them shortly to get your votes, or inspire the comic in you to submit your own joke