WHERE do comedians go when they need a laugh? To York Theatre Royal.

Top comics Paul Merton and Jimmy Carr were spotted at the theatre over the weekend, in the audience rather than on stage.

Both had come to see the world premiere of Ray Galton and John Antrobus's stage play, Steptoe & Son in Murder At Oil Drum Lane.

Merton attended Friday night's performance. The Have I Got News For You skipper is a celebrated fan of Steptoe & Son's creators, Galton and Alan Simpson, considering them the Lennon and McCartney of comedy writing. A few years back he starred in a series of remakes of their scripts for ITV.

So the fact that, by all accounts, he loved the show will have gone down a treat with the cast, and Galton himself, also in the audience that night. Jimmy Carr was in the next day, watching the Saturday matinee ahead of his own sold-out stand up performance at the Grand Opera House that night.

The show finished in York on Saturday. So will it now head to London's glittering West End? "Watch this space," said Theatre Royal spokesman Duncan Clarke.

ANOTHER funnyman, York's own Tommy Cannon, is still insisting he has no plans to decamp to the jungle with comic partner Bobby Ball.

Ten days ago, when rumours first emerged in the national press that Cannon and Ball were lined up to take part in I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here, Tommy told the Diary that no one had invited them to take part in the show.

Over the last few days the papers were full of more stories about the pair taking part in the ITV reality show, which starts on Sunday. There were even suggestions of a bust-up over fees: the Daily Mail reported that singer Jenny Frost was getting £100,000 for appearing in the two-week programme, while C&B were only pocketing £25,000.

"We have heard nothing," said Tommy.

"I think it starts on Sunday. If I was going out to the jungle I would have thought I would have the flight details, tickets and everything else. I haven't. I'm still here in York."

And keeping busy, he said, running his dog kennelling business, promoting their new live DVD and preparing for panto.

LAST week the Diary carried a series of emails purporting to come from various people praising the council fireworks display.

Time for a confession. None of them was real. We made them up. No, really.

Unfortunately, the one said to be from the head of St Peter's School was clipped out, copied and attached to a newsletter delivered to Westminster Road residents. Out of context, some residents took it to be genuine and complained to the school.

We are happy to make it clear that this "email" was written by us, and certainly not by Richard Smyth, St Peter's head teacher.

The same is true of the one said to be from millionaire US magician David Copperfield.

Rumbled.

Updated: 09:17 Tuesday, November 15, 2005