This week's comedy news

David Mitchell and Robert Webb are to perform their first sketches in four years, when they return with a new series of their Radio 4 show That Mitchell and Webb Sound. The duo will be joined on the broadcasts by original cast member (and fellow Peep Show star) Olivia Colman.

Mitchell described it as "great to return to Radio 4, now that we're old enough to listen to it", while Radio 4 comedy commissioning editor Caroline Raphael said: "My parting words to David and Robert [when they moved to television] were 'the door is always open' – and here they are, back again, and we are absolutely delighted." The duo are also soon to appear in the BBC sitcom Our Men, about Britain's embassy in fictional Tazbekistan.

That news will do nothing to appease Charlie Higson, who's been complaining in the Radio Times about the lack of major-league sketch shows on British TV. "I am thinking of a large mainstream show where you hear a catchphrase and know exactly what it is," said the Fast Show star. "We haven't had one like that since Little Britain." Pressed for reasons, Higson cited Twitter, which provides a platform for the carpers whom comedy, he claims, uniquely attracts. "[Laughter] is a form of social bonding," says Higson, "and if it doesn't work, people get uncomfortable or say, 'Oh, he thinks he's funny, does he?' In many ways the man who is the funniest is the leader of the pack – and there are plenty of people who want to undermine that person … Also, people pay so much attention to Twitter, things aren't given a chance."

Plenty to mull over here for a Centre for Comedy Studies Research – which is handy, because Britain's first such institute opens at Brunel University next month. Jo Brand, a graduate of Brunel, will be acting as ambassador for the centre.

One of her fellow alternative comics, meanwhile, has washed his hands of the art form. "It's great that so many people want to do [comedy]," Adrian Edmondson told the Express, "but I don't find much of it very interesting [any more]." (Disappointing news for his daughter Beattie, who now works as a comedian herself.) Edmondson prefers music these days, so he should check out the website for Harry Hill's new X Factor spoof, I Can't Sing, which has released four tracks for download from the forthcoming West End musical.

Also on stage, Ben (Armstrong and) Miller will star in a new comedy about MP's expenses, The Duck House. On telly, Dylan Moran is to create and star in his own pilot for ABC in the US, reports Splitsider, while the Telegraph reports that Ronnie Barker turned down the title role (later taken by Derek Jacobi) in the legendary small-screen series I, Claudius. What wouldn't you do, dear readers, to have seen that?!

Best of the Guardian's comedy coverage

• "Their vision is 'a godless gathering in every town, city or village that wants one'" – Esther Addley on how Sanderson Jones and Pippa Evans's "atheist church" is going global.

• "I now think of it as scales, where I have to make sure I'm doing enough entertainment shows to balance the science shows" – Dara Ó Briain interviewed in the Observer.

• "Hello, Darlings! is about as deep as one of its subject's briefer skits" – Rachel Cooke reviews a disappointing new biography of Kenny Everett.

• "To say James Corden is a bit like Marmite is quite possibly unfair to Marmite" – the Observer interviews the star of forthcoming The Wrong Mans.

• "Amstell does improve … eventually reaching a point where he convincingly pulls off the role of Simon Amstell" – David Renshaw on the new Grandma's House box set.

A taste of her own medicine

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Sarah Silverman is usually the one causing offence, not taking it. But this week, the US standup – aged 42, which is about to become relevant – is to be found complaining about ageist jokes cracked at her expense. In an interview on W Kamau Bell's show Totally Biased, Silverman was discussing the "comedy roast" of actor James Franco, broadcast on Comedy Central earlier this month, in which Silverman – among other comics – took part. "[Jokes about] me being old, first of all, at the roast? Completely took me by surprise," Silverman told Bell. "It touched on something because it's personal. It's so woman-based. I feel like … as soon as a woman gets to an age where she has opinions and she's vital and she's strong, she's systematically shamed into hiding under a rock. And this is by progressive pop-culture people! … I wish so much that (age jokes) didn't cut me to the core," Silverman went on. "I don't want young girls to see me be hurt by jokes about age because I feel like it's not a good example."

Silverman does have sufficient self-irony, at least, to stop short of suggesting that the jokes should never have been told. "I'm hurt all the time," she said, "but I would die defending people's rights to say anything."

Elsewhere, the same event has been criticised for homophobia, with the comedian Erin Foley calling it "just stupid straight dudes making stupid gay jokes".

Best of our readers' comments

Female American comedians were under discussion this week. Lucy Mangan flew the flag for the sitcom Roseanne, 25 years old this week. "Even more striking than the gag rate is how much new ground it broke," writes Mangan. Below the line, commenters reflected on comedy, class – and the state of US sitcom writing. Here's mikfrak:

I once read an interview with a US comedy writer who said scripts were put together by teams sat around a table competing to tell the funniest one-liners and writing down the best ones. And that's precisely what US comedy shows have become – actors who are idealised, prettier versions of the writers sitting around tables shouting one-liners at each other in a bar or a coffee shop at impossibly high speed. Character development, plot, real-life, have all been thrown out of the window, leaving just a bizarre standup routine where lots of models tell gags to each other instead of an audience, while sipping a drink …

Plotting has become a device to put the models around a table to tell gags to each other, usually about sex, because in their world, jobs, family, politics, class, wars, race etc simply don't exist. It's strange that US drama has got better and better while US comedy has got worse and worse.

Elsewhere, Joan Rivers faced the threat of being kicked out of the Writers Guild of America, over allegations that she violated the its rules by writing jokes for her show Fashion Police during a strike. Which prompted conanthebikeman to volunteer the following half-joke, half-serious remark:

Banned for writing jokes? Does she write jokes? I thought they just came out of her mouth spontaneously. Does the Guild mean "thinking up new jokes"? I just cannot see Joan sitting down with a pen and paper and writing jokes.

So what is "writing"? And is there an Improviser's Guild of America? If you can shed any light, let us know below.

Read David Mitchell's regular column here