This week's comedy news

Bring on standup comedy in which no meaningful opinions are expressed whatsoever! That's the rallying call issued this week by Al Murray, who has told a newspaper that comedians should never express political views. "I have never run my colours up any particular mast and I wouldn't," he said. "Comics have got to find it all ridiculous and send all of it up. The minute you take sides you are not doing that. You put one lead boot on and you will no longer be able to prick everybody. We are supposed to be mischievous and think they are all ghastly." Murray was talking to promote his Radio 5 Live topical comedy show 7 Day Saturday, of which he said: "If someone expresses a point of view, I say, no opinions allowed on this show." Sounds like thrilling radio.

More news from 5 Live, as the Beeb is forced to apologise for a remark by the, ahem, comedian Bob Mills on the network's Fighting Talk slot, to the effect that sports presenter Clare Balding might be "cured" of being a lesbian. Balding, said Mills in a gameshow round entitled Defend the Indefensible, is a "horse woman [who] appreciates power between her thighs," adding, "we all know, there is no woman that can't be cured". Nineteen listeners complained about the broadcast, which also asked contestants to discuss whether Balding should present racing shows topless. Meanwhile, another comic known for charmless remarks about sporting women, Frankie Boyle, is on the defensive this week, as Scottish police have been called in to investigate internet threats against the rabble-rousing standup.

You'll know by now that the Edinburgh fringe programme was launched last week. But did you know that, for the first time in ages, comedy's presence is shrinking at the world's biggest arts festival? Despite an overall increase in shows on the fringe of 6.5%, the percentage of shows classified as comedy has reduced from 36% to 33%. (The number of comedy shows has remained almost exactly the same.) One comic talent who isn't participating is footballer Joey Barton, who this week made his comic debut – in a sketch alongside the French sports journalist with whom he had a Twitter spat last March. Meanwhile, the TV channel Comedy Central is to broadcast a live advert performed – with no knowledge in advance of the product being promoted – by comic improvisers Mischief Theatre. The stunt will take place on 17 June.

This week's telly news brings tidings of Joan Collins' casting in the next series of ITV sitcom Benidorm, and of the return for a second series of Stewart Lee's showcase of left(ish)-field standup talent, The Alternative Comedy Experience. Chortle reports, meanwhile, on the possible transfer from Radio 4 to BBC TV of Miles Jupp's acclaimed comedy In and Out of the Kitchen, about a gay cookery writer.

And finally, US comedian Jon Lajoie has launched a Kickstarter fundraising campaign this week with a noble goal in mind. "'Please help me,' he wrote to fans, '[to] accomplish my dream of becoming super-rich…' "

Worth watching

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An interesting debate here on the US show Totally Biased with W Kamau Bell, in which the vexed subject of rape jokes in comedy is contested, with spirit, by standup Jim Norton and feminist blogger Lindy West. I watched it and tried to imagine this much airtime on British TV dedicated to such an intelligent chat about comedy. I'll keep on imagining …

Best of the guardian's comedy coverage

• "Telly never has any smart, amusing intellectuals living on a council estate. That's why we wrote the sitcom" – Caitlin Moran on her upcoming series Raised By Wolves.

• "'Staggeringly realistic' 3D holographic projection technology spirits [a] dead comedian on to the stage" – Les Dawson returns to TV.

• "I felt as if I were in a sci-fi movie, where an all-female comedy mothership suddenly appears, illuminated and throbbing" – Barbara Ellen on Psychobitches, among others.

• "I think people have started to think that I am this … cunt" – Peep Show star Robert Webb frets about his image; Alexis Petridis asks the questions.

• "The Footlights has certainly lived off its wits. And what wits they have been" – From the archive: a centenary of Cambridge's famed comedy finishing school.

Best of our readers' comments

Girls Season 2

Of course, last week's Laughing stock attracted much comment below the line: it has the word "porn" in the headline, after all. At time of writing, this news bulletin on the protests of Girls creator Lena Dunham at news of a skin-flick version of her HBO comedy had attracted 69 comments – which seemed about right. The debate split between those – such as rrrrrsrrrr – who thought Dunham justified in getting the hump:

Why shouldn't a female comedian writing about the nonsense of female paranoias be called a feminist? And she's damn funny to boot. If someone made a porn version of Miranda, or anything that Sarah Millican has created, there would be national uproar … I understand that Girls has a specific audience, which is very unlikely to feature Guardian readers in it. But even if you don't enjoy the show, surely you can understand why having your artistic pride and joy turned into a porno would be something to speak up about?

… those – like conedison – who thought Girls was no shrinking violet when it came to sexploitation:

I thought the sex early on was utterly gratuitous and instilled for the sole purpose of getting re-upped for a second series … congrats, Lena. BUT, once the show made it, [that] calmed down, the characters developed, if not emotionally, at least in terms of story arc and at the end I even, sort of, cared about them. But if you believe that guys weren't watching this show early on to see some unalloyed fucking, you are in serious denial. Sex sells. You can philosophically coat it all you like, but it is what it is.

… and those, like MockinbirdGirl, who think Dunham could have found a more humorous means of protesting: