Armando Iannucci is to lecture at Oxford on British comedy, giving four lectures over the coming weeks, all under the title of 'British TV Comedy: Dead or Alive?'

The titles of the lectures are 'Ever Decreasing Viewing Figures: the decline of mainstream comedy' (24 Jan, St Anne's College, Oxford), followed by 'Little Office: the rise of Cult Comedy' (31st Jan, St Anne's College), 'Help!: TV comedy under threat (7th Feb, Green College, Oxford)' and finally 'Two Feet In the Grave?: how can mainstream comedy survive?' (14 Feb, Green College)

For those of you not familiar with Mr Iannucci's work, a short summary of why he's extremely well qualified to give these lectures.

He wrote and produced Knowing Me, Knowing You and I'm Alan Partridge, with directing duties on the latter. He wrote and presented The Friday and Saturday Night Armistice on BBC, The Armando Iannucci Shows on Channel 4 and Armando Iannucci's Charm Offensive on BBC Radio 4. Currently he's just finished making the second series of the satirical comedy The Thick Of It. In short, he knows what he's talking about.

The lectures are open to all, but are likely to be very busy. It's first come, first served. For further information about how to get to the lectures, please go to:

http://www.ox.ac.uk/aboutoxford/how.shtml