Eddie Izzard will be doing some live shows in Australia and New Zealand in November, for the first time in eight years. Check out his website for details.

There’s a couple of great interviews with Shaun Micallef over at TvTonight with David Knox, and at The Age with Paul Kalina. Crikey would love to talk to him, if I could just figure out who to email.

Lawrence Mooney will be headlining Hot Templar Nights at Madame Brussells on 31st August. Under the stewardship of Simon Keck, a great line-up of comedians will dig up their most articulate and horrifying stand-up. Sounds like great fun, and is strictly adults only.

The Melbourne Fringe Festival have released their program, and there’s some great comedy shows in the line-up. A few comedians are repeating shows from this year’s MICF, and we’ve got reviews handy for Lawrence Mooney‘s award winning ‘An Indecisive Bag of Donuts‘ (review), Jason Chong‘s ‘Reel Life‘ (review) and Anyone for Tennis in ‘Prepare to be Tuned‘ (review). The Fringe Festival starts on 21st September, and we’ll be out reviewing when we can.

Finalists for the Foster’s Edinburgh Comedy Awards have been announced, and Crikey’s best wishes go to all nominated, but especially to Australian comedian Sam Simmons for ‘best comedy show’. The ‘ten funniest jokes of The Fringe’ have also been announced, with Nick Helm taking out the top prize with ‘I needed a password with eight characters – so I picked Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.’ Head over to Chortle for the complete list.

Entries are now open for the 2012 Moosehead Awards, and will close on 28th September. The winner will get a large boost to their MICF show for next year.

A trailer has been released for An Idiot Abroad 2: The Bucket List, a follow up to An Idiot Abroad featuring Karl Pilkington, Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant. This time around Karl Pilkington will be doing ‘all the things he should have experienced’. It’s on Sky One in the UK in September, and will turn up on One in Australia some time next year. The first series was great.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_gKcq9aAh4[/youtube]