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  LOL: LAST ONE LAUGHING UK, S2 When the first season of 'LOL: Last One Laughing UK ' landed on Amazon Prime last year, it achieved a couple of things. The comedy competition confirmed what national treasures, Bob Mortimer and Richard Ayoade are. The show was also enthusiastically gobbled up by a British public desperate for laughs, thanks to a daily diet of depressing news on mainstream TV channels, radio stations and the rage bait populating their social media feeds. Amazon Prime UK secured its biggest ever audience - with around two million people streaming it. With Amazon quickly commissioning a second season for 2026, the immediate question facing the producers was: could lightning strike twice? Very cleverly, the producers hit on one way to give the show a fighting chance of doing exactly that by bringing back last year's winner Bob Mortimer to defend his crown. Let's explain the show's premise for those unfamiliar with it. 'LOL: Last One Laughing UK' ...

SPILT MILK Recently I got to rewatch Lenny Abrahamson's ' Adam and Paul '. The heartbreaking story of two Dublin heroin addicts, Abrahamson's debut film is a rare example of an Irish director directly confronting the disparity between rich and poor in the age of the Celtic Tiger.  A ' Ulysses ' style trek through the Irish capital with two characters who are also like something out of a Samuel Beckett play mixed with Vittorio da Sica's ' Bicycle Thieves ,' 22 years on its humour and shade still hit hard. Sadly, it remains pertinent. The drugs may have changed in Dublin since Abrahamson's film was initially screened but the problems of addiction and homelessness remain. Brian Durnin's period family drama 'Spilt Milk' also deals with addiction in a different way - telling it from the perspective of a 11 year old ' Kojak ' obsessed boy. Set in Dublin in the 1980s when unemployment and immigration gripped the nation, we gradually ...

  THE WALSH SISTERS What is it about dramas in recent years with dysfunctional Dublin families? First we had the Garveys in Sharon Horgan's Apple TV series ' Bad Sisters '. Then there we got the Sheridans in Nancy Harris' ITV and RTE collaboration ' The Dry '. Then, of course, there was the murderous Kinsellas in AMC and RTE's gangland drama ' KIN '. Now we've got 'The Walsh Sisters,' RTE's six part adaptation of a series of Marian Keyes' books. At the heart is Louisa Harland's Anna Walsh, a great girl altogether whose life of bliss is suddenly overturned when her American boyfriend, Samuel Anderson 's Aidan is seriously injured in a car crash. Then there's Danielle Galligan's single mum Claire who is struggling with raising a young kid weekdays and sharing custody with her ex husband at weekends while desiring his more carefree life. Stefanie Preissner's Maggie desperately wants to conceive and is trying to do...

  PEAKY BLINDERS: THE IMMORTAL MAN ' Peaky Blinders ' was a strange TV phenomenon. Deeply loved by its fans across the world, the stylish English gangster series was undoubtedly full of working class swagger. Very cinematic, it drew a cast most series would have died for and had some powerful TV moments. Yet Steven Knight's Brummie gangster show also lacked consistency and often tied itself up in knots with convoluted plots. Now it's back with another outing for Cillian Murphy's haunted Romany Gypsy mob boss Tommy Shelby in a typically star studded Netflix movie. With Knight back on board as the writer and Tom Harper in the director's chair, 'Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man' is set  seven years after Shelby tried to stop the rise of British fascism . Britain is at war with the Nazis in 1940, with Luftwaffe bombers decimating cities from the skies. In addition to taking lives, the Nazis are producing counterfeit pound notes in Germany to flood and weaken...

  SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE UK - OPENING SHOW 'Saturday Night Live' is an American comedy institution. It's turbo boosted the careers of many of performers and writers from Chevvy Chase to Kate McKinnon, Larry David to Conan O'Brien, Eddie Murphy to Seth Meyers. So you can kind of understand why Lorne Michaels, its legendary executive producer, has decided to stick to a successful formula when creating a British franchise version for Sky One. But given Britain has a long and proud tradition of acerbic satirical humour, surely something's gotta give and it doesn't have to stick rigidly to the old 'SNL' formula? 'Saturday Night Live UK' landed on Sky One looking like the American version, sounding like the American version and pretty much waddling like the American version. The opening credits of various members of the cast on the streets of London was a direct recreation of the US show. The set was an exact replica. The trademark opening monologue, Week...

  OSCARS 2026: THE RESULTS It had been billed as the tightest Oscars race in years. In the end, the statuettes largely went to the movies tipped to win at the start of this year's race - with one or two exceptions. 2026 will be remembered, though, as a year of a straight fight in many categories between Paul Thomas Anderson's Trump era epic 'One Battle After Another' and Ryan Coogler's vampire box office sensation 'Sinners'. Both would have been worthy winners of Best Picture and they ended up taking away a range of statuettes. However the Academy made the decision to reward Anderson with the big prizes and you suspect that wasn't just for his dazzling film but for a career packed full of dazzling films. An early indicator that 'One Battle After Another' was going to edge out 'Sinners' came when Cassandra Kulukundis took the first ever Oscar for Best Casting. 'One Battle After Another' would go on to land five other awards for Bes...