Charlie's Comedians - A - Amstell, Simon

I have always been fairly fond of Simon Amstell - I remember watching PopWorld when I was doing my GCSEs (I specifically remember that as Miquita Oliver was doing her GCSEs too and I couldn't believe that while I was doing nothing but revision, going bowling and watching endless amounts of Daria another sixteen year old girl was meeting popstars!) I ended up leaving that world behind and didn't really think of him much until he took over from Mark Lamarr on Buzzcocks. It wasn't something I watched all the time; I always preferred HIGNFY but whenever I did watch it Simon Amstell was funny and engaging - mean too, but mean to vacuous people I'd barely heard of.

When commenting on Katy Perry's song Ur so gay he said something along the lines of "and if you're offended by that, Jew off and stop being so black about it." And then he left so he could persue stand up. This surprised me. I couldn't imagine him doing stand up. I was so wrong.

His show Do Nothing was amazing - funny, sweet, beautiful. For some reason (I'm an idiot) I hadn't realised he was gay until we saw his live show (duh) - which was about looking for a skinny boy to love. He tortures himself, obsesses over details and is painfully shy; he is truly one of us. He was being obsessed with Jared Leto (in terms of him being Jordan Catalano in My So Called Life rather than his more recent, less interesting successes with 30 Seconds To Mars!) I love MSCL and watched it when I was far too young for teen drama (about eight or nine). So I loved that stuff. I think a lot of the stuff in his show has featured hugely in Grandma's House which I really enjoyed (though his live stuff is better, I think).

I'll definitely see him again someday and in case you don't have a television here's a picture of him. Lush!