This is my review from today’s Nottingham Post. ‘Somebody said to me this week, “Dan, you’ve broke the internet.” I said, “I wish somebody fucking would.’ There have been better weeks to be Danny Baker. On Wednesday night, he tweeted a photo that, however intended, came over as a vile racist gag. He deleted the tweet as soon as he realised what he’d so casually done, later describing it as a ‘crass and regrettable blunder’. The worst day of his life followed. No apology could save his BBC job. Tonight, at his first show since being sacked, the question is whether he can save his reputation. He’s had a few nights to think about it. Will he address the elephant in the room right off…

With this weekend’s announcement of Simon Armitage’s appointment as poet laureate, many of us have been reminiscing about when we first came across him in the late 80’s. My partner, Sue Dymoke, did her first public reading with him in 1987 and our friend John Harvey published him early on in the fine Nottingham-based poetry magazine Slow Dancer (celebrating its fortieth anniversary this year – Sue was the UK poetry editor for many years). 29 years ago, enthused by Simon’s early work, I wrote an essay about him for Slow Dancer. I wanted to give him a boost, but his career was moving so quickly, he’d already taken flight. Over on Facebook, Andrew Moorhouse asked me to dig out this first ever essay on Armitage and copy…

My review from today’s Nottingham Post. Photo below by their Kevin Cooper. At 61, Marc Almond is entitled to take it easy. He has no album to promote, he tells a packed house, but wants to keep tonight ‘populist’, singing lots of favourite songs, most of them by old stars: ‘who tend to be dead stars, so they’re never going to let you down.’ He kicks off with Charles Aznavour’s I Have Lived, then it’s straight into a Scott Walker tribute, with The Big Hurt and, later, a fine Big Louise. There’s Billy Fury’s I’m Lost Without You and T.Rex’s Cosmic Dancer, which leads into a Bowie section featuring Starman, John, I’m Only Dancing and Brel’s Amsterdam. Four numbers are done nearly acapella, with his…

Live comedy’s all about timing. With ‘The Mash Report’, the 33-year-old Kumar has positioned himself as our prime political comedian, the only satirist doing what US audiences take for granted in ‘The Daily Show’. After a somewhat shaky start, it’s established itself as the only UK topical news comedy worth watching, although, at six episodes per season, can’t compare to its US equivalent. How to deal with an ever-changing political situation? A show written some months back might not cut it, and Kumar has a rep to maintain. The last week has been so tumultuous that I was curious about how Kumar would incorporate these farcical events into his set. I needn’t have been. He doesn’t. After a well-received warm-up set by Rosie Jones, weaponising…