It’s not a great sign when the cast list for a film makes more interesting viewing than the film itself.

Asterisk introduces Obelisk to his girlfriend.

A triumvirate of Scots comedy shows have broken through to critical acclaim in the last couple of years, gaining support from the likes of Grace Dent despite their availability on the other side of Hadrian’s Wall being limited to iPlayer.

Obelisk ponders Asterisk’s inevitable obsoletion.

Simon Pegg and Nick Frost reprise another version of their amiable bromance that’s been featured in all their collaborations and is an entertaining Sci-Fi romp aimed at fans of the genre.

Another instalment in the lives of our dynamic duo.

This is a movie that practically begs you to compare it to things that are a lot better.

One late Christmas Ever Ebenezeer Scrooge was visited by three spirits who showed him the past, the present and the Yet To Come. This is like that, but with three reviewers & Shiny’s usual pop culture nonsense. Merry Christmas.

It isn’t just that ‘Burke and Hare’ is bad, although clearly it is.

The speed and severity of the decline in the popularity of the films of Charles Chaplin is one of the more interesting wrinkles in the history of popular perception of films

Hey kids, you liked ‘Shaun of the Dead’ right? A bunch of British comic actors play goofy slackers adrift in the middle of a zombie outbreak and resident in the suburbs and the local pub in a narrative awash with cultural references and geeky self-awareness – great stuff! The makers of ‘FAQ…’ certainly thought so [...]

Thanks to the magic of iPlayer, the rest of the UK can catch up on BBC Scotland’s latest sketch show, ‘Burnistoun’. I’ve now seen the first two episodes.
The sketches are mostly surreal takes on mundane, everyday experiences. Setting the show apart from most sketch shows is its amiable tone, as well as the length of [...]

The danger with satire is that it can swiftly become out of date…

‘Black Sheep’ firmly maintains the Kiwi tradition for making the grungiest, funniest and most physically substantial horror movies in the world today…

‘The Mighty Boosh’ has shifted location, from Vince and Howard’s flat to Naboo’s shop, the wonderfully monikered Nabootique, this season. Of more consequence is a shift in tone.

This is the show that deserves to make Peter Serafinowicz into a household name. And rather helpfully for those households, there’s finally a definitive pronunciation of ‘Serafinowicz’.

All credit to Karen Taylor for spotting an opportunity and trying to grab it…

There are some lifestyle choices which can’t be justified by any objective standard, and a full-on enthusiasm for Chevy Chase is one of those…

Given that ‘Only Fools and Horses’ has had about three episodes designed to stand as its definitive finale, it’s hard to imagine a time when the BBC wasn’t bothered about giving closure to its sitcoms…

Here at Shiny Shelf we’ve come up with the wheeze of doing a sort of reviews advent calendar, building up to the festive period by writing about a Christmassy movie or TV episode for each day of advent…

The second series of ‘Extras’ has concerned itself with sticking the boot into BBC1 lowest-common-denominator comedy, with questionable results…

There’s a semi-serious strand running through ‘Clerks 2′, a maudlin tone of lost opportunity that matches with the slacker ethos of the first movie…

‘That Mitchell and Webb Look’ is a TV version of the radio sketch comedy series from the team behind Channel 4’s skin-crawlingly excellent ‘Peep Show’.

‘Modern Toss’ is an occasional comic book, of the sort that seems at first glance to be designed for the Nathan Barleys of East London, all excessive swearing and low-fi design.

Although the concept of ‘Annually Retentive’ may well inspire suspicion – it wouldn’t be the first TV comedy to attempt to coast on a clever idea without actually being funny – it is very funny, as well as having cleverness beyond its initial concept…

The lower overheads of producing DVDs are creating a world of joy for cineastes and TV-astes, as it becomes more viable for obscure material to get a commercial release…

If ‘Snuff Box’, the brilliant new semi-narrative sketch show from Matt Berry and Rich Fulcher, had a high concept it would be something along the lines of ‘What if The Persuaders were a pair of depraved hangmen?’

It’s a peculiar state of affairs when the most noteworthy thing about a new Channel 4 comedy is considered to be that it takes place largely on one set and is performed in front of a studio audience…

There are some things about ‘Hyperdrive’ that are rather objectionable…

The beginning of a new series of ‘Just A Minute’ is always a cause for small celebrations.

Mary Louise Parker has always had a vast untapped potential to be lead of her own TV show.

Have we now gone so far down the ‘my enemy’s enemy is my friend’ route that we’ll cheer something that’s manifestly dreadful because it might hurt someone we don’t like?

As ‘Extras’ comes to the end of its BBC2 run, Ricky Gervais looks like a smarter operator than ever…

What Armando Iannucci and Jesse Armstrong have done here is very simply asked themselves what ‘Yes, Minister’ would have been like had it been made today, and then made it…

While never likely to please the more militant fans of earlier versions, the film ‘Hitchhikers’ stays faithful to the spirit of its author, and registers as a (qualified) success…

The problem with ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’ movie isn’t that it’s not faithful, it’s worse – it’s that it’s not funny.

Johnny Depp’s favourite comic actor returns in what is easily the best vehicle for his talents since ‘The Fast Show’…

A little belated, this review, as the CD came out last November – but as it didn’t exactly emerge in a blaze of publicity, allow us to build a little hype…

Watching ‘Nathan Barley’ involves a sort of self-reflexive masochism that eventually drives you insane…

The London Film Festival has hit a hat trick of zingers with its mystery movie over the last few years. 2002 saw the Oscar-nominated Douglas Sirk tribute ‘Far From Heaven’, and 2003 showcased the immensely enjoyable ‘School of Rock’.

‘The Smoking Room’ has been deemed a failure already as it arrives on BBC2 from BBC3, with the trailers tossing around quotes from glowing reviews in a desperate attempt to win higher ratings than its BBC3 run…

I’m partially reviewing this because some of the series biggest laughs, and most spectacular gross-out moments, are still lurking near the top of my subconscious nearly a week after a single viewing.

What felt a bit hit-and-miss at first is now producing far more hits than misses…

‘The Mighty Boosh’ is cheap, and some of the ideas fall flat, but the great comic moments in the show are so good, and so inventive, that they’re well worth the wait…

A glance at the BBC’s list of the nation’s favourite sitcoms demonstrates that Channel 4 has struggled to produce a genuinely enduring comedy…

Six years ago this line-up would have been labelled ‘It’s Ross Noble Night on BBC2′ and a special BBC2 logo in the shape of Ross Noble would have been commissioned to mark the occasion…

It’s an enduring testimony to the legacy of ‘This Is Spinal Tap’ that even today the film, and its titular rock act, still get referenced and riffed upon everywhere from ‘The Simpsons’ to highbrow academia…

It’s good to find an original comedy concept, and it looks like this is such a rare discovery as Rob Brydon provides comic voice-over to a series of C-grade TV series (‘Bonanza’, ‘Duchess of Duke Street’, ‘Mr and Mrs’)…

At last, horror novelist Garth Marenghi’s infamous ‘banned’ TV series, ‘Darkplace’, can be revealed to the world. Can you face the horror?

‘The Director’s Commentary’ is one of those simple/genius ideas that you wish you’d thought of first…