Sony Pixel Power calrec Sony

Gold reveals top 30 comics for Britain's Greatest Comedian

01/05/2019

Wednesday 1 May 2019 The nations favourite comedy channel Gold, has revealed which comedy legends have made it into the top 30 for a brand new one-off special, Britains Greatest Comedian. The UKTV Original, airing on Sunday 26th May at 8pm, will see the star-studded jury deliberate over which comic genius should take the top spot.

The jury, chaired by actor and comedian Sally Phillips, includes comedy actors Stephen Mangan, Nina Wadia, John Thomson and Ronni Ancona, stand-up Darren Harriott, comedy writer David Quantick, journalist Boyd Hilton and all-round comedy legend Roy Hudd.

A public vote helped provide the jurors with a shortlist of 30. Those that made the list are as follows, in alphabetical order:

Caroline Aherne

Dave Allen

Rowan Atkinson

Bill Bailey

Ronnie Barker

Sacha Baron-Cohen

Jo Brand

Kathy Burke

John Cleese

Billy Connolly

Steve Coogan

Tommy Cooper

Ken Dodd

Lee Evans

Micky Flanagan

Dawn French

Ricky Gervais

Eddie Izzard

Peter Kay

Stan Laurel

Stewart Lee

Sir Lenny Henry

Lee Mack

Rik Mayall

Michael McIntyre

Spike Milligan

Eric Morecambe

Jennifer Saunders

Peter Sellers

Victoria Wood

Over the course of the three-hour show, the panel debate and discuss the merits of each comedian and their contribution to British comedy before deciding which order they should be in. Accompanied by archive clips of their finest and funniest moments and mini-biographies to support each argument, the fight for number one is fierce!

Britains Greatest Comedian airs on Sunday 26th May at 8pm on Gold.

#BritainsGreatestComedian | @goldchannel

_

For more information and interview requests, please contact:

Kelly Phelps, Publicist, UKTV

About Gold

Sky 110, Virgin 124, BT and TalkTalk 310 On demand on Sky, Virgin and Now TV

Dedicated to celebrating the best of British comedy, Gold is the nations favourite comedy channel. Much-loved comedy series such as Only Fools and Horses, The Vicar of Dibley and The Royle Family sit alongside an array of successful UKTV Originals including David Jason: My Life on Screen, The Rebel, The Story of Only Fools and Horses, and Murder on the Blackpool Express, which stars a stunning cast including Johnny Vegas and Sian Gibson. The feature length UKTV Original attracted 1.72 million viewers in its first week in 2017, making it Golds highest ever rating show.

The perfect tonic to make you laugh whatever the time of day, Gold shows universally funny content that everyone can enjoy.

gold.uktv.co.uk | @goldchannel

About UKTV

UKTV is a commercial broadcaster reaching almost 40m viewers every month.

The award-winning independent has eleven imaginative brands - UKTV Play, Dave, W, Gold, Alibi, Yesterday, Drama, Really, Home, Eden and Good Food. These include the two most popular non-PSB channels in the UK and account for nearly 10% of the British commercial TV market.

The network delivers inspired channels to audiences through Freeview, Sky, Virgin Media, BT, TalkTalk, YouView, Freesat, Amazon Fire and UKTV Play, and distributes its highly valued original programmes to 200 territories. Now celebrating over 20 years at the forefront of digital television, UKTV - an independent commercial joint venture between BBC Studios and Discovery, Inc. - is proud to be the first British television broadcaster in The Sunday Times top 100 companies list.

corporate.uktv.co.uk | press.uktv.co.uk | @uktvpress
LINK: https://corporate.uktv.co.uk/news/article/gold-reveals-top-30-comics-b...
See more stories from uktv

Most recent headlines

05/01/2027

Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be demoed at CES 2026

Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...

07/10/2026

Dalet Flex LTS Delivers Smarter Media Operations from Ingest to Distribution

Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, today announced the latest Long-Term Supported (LTS) release of Dalet Flex. Build...

06/09/2026

Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA World Cup 2026 in Germany with Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos

June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...

04/08/2026

Dalet Announces Commercial Availability of Dalia, Bringing Media-Aware Agentic AI to Enterprise Productions

Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...

30/07/2026

Comments on FCC License Renewals for ABC Stations Top 150,000

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

30/07/2026

CW Sports Live Streaming to Launch Aug. 4 on the ESPN App

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

30/07/2026

Fox Advertising, iSpot Expand Measurement Deal

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

30/07/2026

GlobalM Expands Software-Defined Media Platform for Cloud...

At IBC2026, GlobalM will showcase the latest evolution of its software-defined media platform, enabling broadcasters, telecom operators and media organisations ...

30/07/2026

Digital Alert Systems at 2026 TAB Show

At the 2026 TAB Show, Digital Alert Systems will highlight and demo the new DAS-Link AIR, an over-the-air common alert protocol (CAP) dissemination system for ...

30/07/2026

OpenDrives Named to the 2026 CRN Storage 100 List

OpenDrives Named to the 2026 CRN Storage 100 List Company Recognized Among the 50 Coolest Software-Defined Storage Vendors for Unlimited Capacity, S3 Hybrid M...

30/07/2026

VIDA Brings AI Scene-Level Search to Media Archives Endin...

New Scene Search capability in VIDA Content OS makes video content itself searchable, letting broadcasters and streamers find key moments across millions of ass...

29/07/2026

Grass Valley Op-Ed Series: Seven Paradoxes Shaping the Next Era of Media Production

In this series, Grass Valley explores the seven paradoxes shaping the next era o...

29/07/2026

SVG Students to Watch: A Look Back at a Year of Spotlighting the Emerging Talent in Live Sports Production

Thats a wrap on Season 1 of SVG Students to Watch! Across the country, these stu...

29/07/2026

DAZN to Become Exclusive DTC In-Market Streaming Home of YES Network, MSG Networks; Gotham App to Shut Down

The agreement will move Gotham Sports App subscribers to DAZN during the 2026-27...

29/07/2026

Big South Promotes Emily Dassel to Associate Commissioner for Brand and Creative Strategy

Longtime digital-media leader expands role overseeing conference branding, video...

29/07/2026

Give Me the Backstory: Get to Know Gregg Araki, the Director of I Want Your Sex

By Bailey Pennick One of the most exciting things about the Sundance Film Festival is having a front-row seat for the bright future of independent filmmaking. ...

29/07/2026

TiME UK announce transatlantic partnership

Organisation team up with TI:ME USA Founded in 2019 with the aim of helping educators to embrace new music technology, Technology in Music Education (TiME U...

29/07/2026

Multiply 2: Free plug-in from Acon Digital

Doubling & chorus processor gets an overhaul Acon Digital have just launched the latest version of their free voice-doubling and chorus plug-in. Multiply 2 ...

29/07/2026

Origin Effects launch the EQDeluxe

New Pultec-inspired pedal revealed The latest addition to the Origin Effects line-up brings the legendary Pultec EQ into pedal format. Based on the EQP-1A, ...

29/07/2026

SBS Appoints Chief Commercial Officer and Director of Marketing and Audiences

SBS Appoints Chief Commercial Officer and Director of Marketing and Audiences 29 July, 2026 Media releases SBS is pleased to announce the appointment of Ni...

29/07/2026

Rohde & Schwarz showcases unified next-generation broadcasting ecosystem at SET Expo 2026 in Brazil

Rohde & Schwarz showcases unified next-generation broadcasting ecosystem at SET ...

29/07/2026

Central Christian Church Connects Remote Production Teams with Clear-Com's Gen-IC...

eds3_5_jq(document).ready(function($) { $(#eds_sliderM519).chameleonSlider_2_1({...

29/07/2026

Streaming Embarks on Annual Summer Ascent in Nielsen's May 2026 Gauge Reports

Streaming Hits 48.6% of Total TV Usage in May YouTube Leads in Media Distributo...

29/07/2026

WVIT's Joseph DiMaggio Named SBE Flanders Engineer of the Year

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

29/07/2026

Amagi Appoints Martin Wacker to Lead Sales for DACH -- St...

Industry veteran joins Amagi to drive growth in Europe's leading broadcast market and advance cloud-native broadcast, FAST, and AI-driven operations. LONDO...

29/07/2026

WebTransport opens new route for broadcast-quality media...

Work is ongoing to specify how to run RIST over WebTransport. This will deliver secure, stable, broadcast quality video playback and origination to any platform...

29/07/2026

Offline Files Makes the Drive Shelf Searchable on Mac

Offline Files Makes the Drive Shelf Searchable on Mac Brie Clayton July 29, 2026 0 Comments A local Mac app for finding files, photos, and footage acr...

29/07/2026

Blackmagic Design Announces New UltraStudio Mini 12G

Blackmagic Design Announces New UltraStudio Mini 12G Brie Clayton July 29, 2026 0 Comments New extremely portable Thunderbolt 4 capture and playback ...

29/07/2026

Brightline Lighting Introduces the MOD1

Brightline Lighting, a premier manufacturer of energy-efficient lighting systems for broadcast, videoconferencing, government, education and corporate applicati...

29/07/2026

Applications open for IFFI/WAVES Film Bazaar in Goa - Producer Delegation

Applications open for IFFI/WAVES Film Bazaar in Goa - Producer Delegation 28 July 2026 Image credit: Four Years Later Screen Australia has opened applications...

29/07/2026

Brightline Unveils Compact, Suspended MOD1 LED Light

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

29/07/2026

NAB Meets With Trusty on Ownership Caps

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

29/07/2026

QuickLink To Feature New StudioPro AnywhereTally At IBC 2026

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

29/07/2026

HBO Max Launches Vertical Shorts to Improve Content Discovery

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

29/07/2026

New Tool Identifies Sources Of Fake Videos

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

29/07/2026

DNEG Migrates Editorial Workflows to Foundrys Hiero

Foundry today announced that Academy Award-winning creative studio DNEG has implemented Hiero to support its editorial workflows. Part of the Nuke product famil...

29/07/2026

QuickLink Unveils New StudioPro AnywhereTally Remote Tall...

The Latest Addition to the Brand's StudioPro Ecosystem Combines Simple Deployment, Cloud Control and Professional Grade Wireless Reliability QuickLink, a l...

29/07/2026

The Secret Master Adjustment Layer Hack in After Effects

The Secret Master Adjustment Layer Hack in After Effects Graham Quince July 28, 2026 0 Comments Trish Meyer (who literally beta-tested the original Af...

29/07/2026

Post Completed with Blackmagic Cloud for Shane Kosugi's Feature Film SEEK

Post Completed with Blackmagic Cloud for Shane Kosugi's Feature Film SEEK Brie Clayton July 28, 2026 0 Comments Cannes Indie International Film Fe...

29/07/2026

Isabeau Miller Named Chair of Berklee Songwriting Department

Isabeau Miller Named Chair of Berklee Songwriting Department The Berklee alumna, who previously served on the Songwriting faculty, will begin her new role on ...

29/07/2026

SES Launches Multi-Orbit Satellite Connectivity on LATAM Airbus, Embraer Fleet

Luxembourg, July 29, 2026 - SES, a leading space solutions company, was selected by LATAM Airlines to provide multi-orbit inflight connectivity service to its g...

29/07/2026

Hayu is coming to Sky, bringing fan-favourite franchises The Real Housewives, Below Deck and more to customers, at no extra cost

Wednesday 29 July 2026 Hayu is coming to Sky, bringing fan-favourite franchises...

29/07/2026

New RT true crime podcast launches today

RT launches Unsolved, a true crime podcast, presented by crime journalist Barry Cummins and presenter Katja Mia. Unsolved is a weekly podcast exploring unsol...

28/07/2026

LiveUs World Cup Record: 1,700 Units Support Wide Range of Transmission Needs

LiveU, the pioneer in IP-video transmission and cloud-based remote production, today detailed its historic performance records set during the 2026 FIFA World Cu...

28/07/2026

Case Study: How the Dallas Cowboys Removed Bottlenecks in Off-site Content Production

The NFL franchise rebuilt their off-site content operation for an era when teams...

28/07/2026

A New Way To Watch': How Formula 1 and Sky Sports Are Pushing Race Coverage Into a New Era

Longtime partners expand viewer choice, data-driven analysis, access, immersive ...

28/07/2026

Grass Valley Op Ed: Seven Paradoxes Shaping the Next Era of Media Production

There is a unique moment before every major production. The audience never sees it. The cameras are ready. The talent is preparing. Directors review the final...

28/07/2026

The CW Network, ESPN Ink Streaming Agreement With Launch on Aug. 4

The CW Network and ESPN have announced their highly anticipated streaming agreement to bring CW Sports' live events to the ESPN App will officially launch o...

28/07/2026

Lawo Delivers Audio Excellence for Europes Largest Classical Open-Air Concert on Bastille Day

As more than tens of thousands of spectators filled Paris' Champ de Mars and...

28/07/2026

Appear Assists Chile's First Large-Scale 4K FIFA World Cup Viewing Experience

Appear's X Platform played a central role in Chile's first large-scale c...