Brace yourself London. It is good to see that after an extended period away from the capital's live circuit - mostly spent filming the St Trinians movie rather than cutting a swathe through the women of olde London towne as per usual – Russell Brand is returning to the stage to appear in a benefit gig at the Hammersmith Apollo on Sunday 23 September, alongside the likes of Mark Thomas, Stewart Lee and Simon Amstell.

There are benefits and fundraisers on an almost weekly basis these days. This one is to raise money to support a legal challenge to the Serious Fraud Office to reopen investigation into the allegations of bribery by BAE Systems in its dealings with Saudi Arabia. Hardly the sexiest of subjects but maybe one worth supporting.

Benefits are an odd thing though. Whether it is Duran Duran at Live Earth or a comedian at the Apollo, is it just me that thinks that they are doing it as much for their own careers as the cause? Yes, I know you are all throwing things at your screen and calling me a cynical old hack, but stand-ups love nothing more than a bit of publicity and the sound of their own voice and they often make so much money elsewhere what does it matter if they earn nothing from this gig?

Anyway, I'm not knocking anyone in particular here, just getting something off my chest. I'm sure they all believe in this issue and you should all support it too. If nothing else it should be a fun night out. In fact, strange as it may seem, Russell Brand has a track record when it comes to political dissent. He was arrested a few years ago for taking his clothes off at an anti-capitalist rally in London. I was hoping the footage was on youtube but I can't find it, so you'll just have to imagine Brand's ballbag swaying in the breeze as he is escorted away by a couple of coppers. The Swines!

So after all the ballyhoo about the £37.50 ticket prices sucking the life out of the Fringe Festival Ricky Gervais finally arrived at Edinburgh Castle night. From the Edinburgh Tattoo to the Edinburgh Taboo-buster. The backdrop was great, the sunset was beautiful, the gig was, well, OK. Bagpipes did their best to warm up the 8000 sold-out crowd, Matthew Kelly introduced proceedings and Gervais came on strutting around like Freddie Mercury to the sound of Queen's One Vision. Ironically, of course. Gervais revealed that profits would be going to the MacMillan Cancer Charity, although profits would have been greater "if it hadn't been for the cost of hiring a castle".

There were a few niggles though. I could have done with an earlier start before the cold set in. I could also have done with video screens. Where I was sitting I missed the nuances of Ricky's monkey impression and general physical comedy, though you can see that he ain't Chaplin even when he's a dot on the horizon. Take a look at the picture here. I think Gervais is in it, but you could play one of those Spot The Ball competitions, just call it Spot The Biggest British Stand-up in the World.

Gervais was obviously aware that there is a bit of a backlash looming, peppering his set with the running aside of "it's not ironic" said in a nasal comedy critic voice and comparing himself to Jim Davidson. As for the material, it was the well-honed mix of gags about fat people, famine, AIDS, ME, Fame and urinating in the kitchen sink, with the "chubby funster" – billed as The King of Comedy – sending himself up just about enough to show that his ego has not quite inflated to zeppelin proportions.

Overall not bad, though rather ungainly for a comedy gig, which thrives on intimacy, not to mention a roof and some warmth. The last time I saw Gervais doing stand-up at the Edinburgh Festival it was 2001, The Office had just started and he was doing a 20-minute set in a tiny pub alongside Jimmy Carr, Stephen Merchant and Robin Ince. Personally I know where I'd rather be seeing my comedy.

And so the Edinburgh Fringe Festival is all over bar the sulking. The successful acts are thrilled and sad to be going, the less successful are staring at a hole where their bank account used to be. For the five acts nominated for the if.comedy Award, however, there is still plenty to play for as they wait to hear the judges' verdict at midnight on Saturday night.

And it is really too close to call. Bookmakers William Hill said that Australian comedian Brendon Burns is clear favourite, but having been on the panel in the past things are not that simple. Judges see the shortlisted shows a second time in the last week and I think Burns's show is the one that will seem weaker the second time around when the surprise elements will be less effective.

By contrast seasoned Irishman Andrew Maxwell could benefit from repeated viewing. His warm, deftly-crafted yet simple stand-up set has some great gags and stories – including a hilarious encounter with Irish politico Bertie Ahern, "a potato in a suit" – and flows over you like the perfect pint of Guinness. Maxwell has been hipper and hotter, but it is still hard to fault this straightforward hour.

The other three acts all have their own novelty factor. Andrew Lawrence is a uniquely sick and twisted stand-up who hates the world. His show is actually much gentler than his debut last year, though if you've never seen him before you'll find this hard to believe – Lawrence spits out bile better than anybody else on the circuit. But is hard to imagine the ten judges voting unanimously in favour of someone who says his ambition in life is to become a social leper.

Pappy’s Fun Club is a brilliantly bouncy sketch show. Fans of last year's nominees We Are Klang would appreciate the silliness in their quick changes, running around and playfulness. And there is something very family-friendly about Pappy – I don't know what the judges think of them, but never mind the if.comedys, give them a children's TV show quick.

And then there is spoof DJ Ivan Brackenbury, who excels at playing inappropriate records for patients – a potential suicide is treated to Jump by Van Halen, a jaundice-sufferer gets Yellow by Coldplay and at one point – holy tabloid outrage alert! – he plays The Primitives' Crash during a Princess Di tribute. I can't see Brackbury winning, it doesn't have the potential or depth of Alan Partridge, but it is certainly an hour of non-stop laughs.

The winner then? By default Andrew Maxwell, who was a pre-Festival tip more times than I can remember back in the early noughties. The if.comedys gave the prize to the exquisitely talented veteran Phil Nichol last year for a show that was not his best, and history could well be repeated, with Maxwell triumphing this time round.

I know he did a similar one in Trafalgar Square, but this has now been spotted at the end of Edinburgh's Princes Street. Does this man's ego know no limits?

If you can't read what it says on the picture, clicking on it might make it bigger. If you still can't read it, it says "Ricky Gervais at Edinburgh Castle is sold out. What a pointless billboard."

And by the way, I do think Ricky Gervais is funny and talented – The Office is beyond brilliant – and I do think this is a funny ad. I just worry that he is starting to plough the same furrow. And in the same way that there is often a thin line between ironic political incorrectness and plain old-fashioned political incorrectness, there is a thin line between ironic arrogance and gone-to-your-head arrogance

Golf has got a pretty dodgy reputation in cutting edge comedy circles thanks to the likes of Tarby and Brucie, but that may all be about to change. Yesterday at the Edinburgh Festival your brave blogger took part in the inaugural Comedians versus Critics Golf Tournament at Dalmahoy Golf Club, just outside the city, arranged by Visit Scotland. Well, it was called Comedians v Critics, but a number of critics bottled out so their places were taken by various management and venue-running types who were pretty nifty with a club and glad to escape the Fringe Festival frenzy for a morning.

Heading up the comedians' team was pocket dynamo Rhona Cameron who proved to be excellent from tee to green. Having grown up in Scotland where golf is compulsory probably helped, but she has really concentrated on her game in recent years and it showed. For Cameron golf is the absolute opposite to performing. Onstage she requires an audience, on the green she hated being watched, but was a trouper throughout. I'd like to see Tiger Woods do as well onstage at the Gilded Balloon in front of a crowd of beery Scots.

While Cameron looked the part, sporting a golfing cap and even bringing her own clubs, my opponent Dan Clark looked like he'd just arrived from a Victorian Gentleman's Club and was far too smart. But that might just be a grudge on my part. I was two holes up with two to play when Clark got his act together, avoided taking up residence in the chasm-like bunkers and won both remaining holes to draw the game.

Miles Jupp was pretty useful too, having played a bit before and Mackenzie Taylor started off hacking away but ended like a pro - not surprising as it turned out over tea later that he had been a very promising teenager, who was sadly sidetracked and corrupted by the comedy world. Once a good golfer, always a good golfer. As for me, once a hacker, always a hacker.

Oh, and by the way, the Critics won, but let's not gloat, the comedians will probably get their revenge in 2008.

So that's it. It's official. Having now seen a picture of Catherine Tate standing next to David Tennant outside the Tardis I now believe the story that Tate is going to appear in the next series of Dr Who. There have been so many silly season rumours flying about lately – last week James Nesbitt was said to be taking over from David Tennant, not so much picking up the baton as being handed the sonic screwdriver – that I don't know what is true and what is cooked up on a quiet news day.

Anyway, good for Tate, though this does seem like a bizarre career move for one of our top comic performers. So will she play it straight or for laughs? Presumably there will be a few giggles as there were when she appeared in the Christmas special The Runaway Bride last year, though her theatre work suggests that Tate also has serious aspirations as a proper thespian.

Then again, it makes perfect sense for Tate to appear in Dr Who. Ever since the cult show was revived in 2005 it has had a fabulous sense of humour. I remember in a very early episode, possibly the first, Rose Tyler asked the then Timelord Chris Eccleston how come he had a Mancunian accent, to which the Doctor brilliantly replied "lots of planets have a north".

The scripts have consistently been witty and sharp as well as scary, but the writers have to be careful how far they take this. If Catherine Tate starts doing her grumpy nan while travelling through the space-time continuum this could just turn into a parody of itself and start feeling like a Tate sketch spoofing the sci-fi show. Not so much Dr Who as Carry On Doctor.

There's been a bit of a kerfuffle over the ticket prices for Ricky Gervais' show at the Edinburgh Festival on August 26. At £37.50 they work out at about two minutes of Ricky per pound. Other shows are usually around £10 for about an hour in the main venues or much less in the converted churches, school halls and disused shops. The argument is not just that the Extras star is taking away fans' money in a giant wheelbarrow, he is also taking away fans from the "real" Fringe shows.

The whole value for money issue is complicated. We are happy to complain to shops when products do not live up to expectations, but I've only once seen people complaining about the value of a show (Ronnie Corbett at the 2006 Glasgow Comedy Festival, when locals objected to the musical support act). When we go to gigs we seem to accept that they may not be up to scratch as part of the deal.

Critics rate shows in terms of stars based on the quality of the performance, we only really rate a show in terms of cost if charges are really wallet-breaking, as in the case of Barbra Streisand's £600 seats. I've often thought, however, that maybe instead of awarding stars we should give a guide to the show's value based on how much one thinks it is worth paying for tickets. Thus a mediocre show might be worth attending if tickets were 50p, a brilliant show might be rated as a £99 must-see.

Comedy prices haven't reached Streisand proportions yet, but they have gradually been creeping up. If in doubt blame the Americans. A few years ago Jerry Seinfeld tickets at the Palladium were around a then-shocking £50, but the visit was special enough to justify the mark-up. Jackie Mason at the Royal Opera House a couple of years back hardly justified the £100 tariff - new material was advertised, old material was delivered.

In the end the punter literally pays their money and makes their choice. Maybe if they went on strike and stayed away when big shows bumped up their prices (and don't even get me started on spurious booking fees) promoters would charge more realistic amounts. But all 8000 tickets for Gervais were snapped up ages ago. If people are mad enough to pay exorbitant rates to see a speck in the distance telling ironically tasteless jokes we can't blame the performer in question for charging them.

The other week I blogged to champion Victoria Beckham's comedic talents. Of course I was hopelessly wide of the mark. The real comedy gem among this nation's great female icons is clearly Kate Moss. It momentarily slipped my mind that she guested as Vicky Pollard's shell-suited sister in Little Britain's Comic Relief special last year. Although she didn't say much, David Walliams, who knows a thing or two about the world of funnies, claims that she has a great sense of humour.

And now the papers are running more major stories on her decidedly comical on-off relationship with Pete Doherty. Surely it's about time they were the stars of their own reality TV programme, which would knock the Osbournes into a cocked hat. Doherty has described their relationship as being like "the Vietnam War", while Kate reportedly sang Moon River down the phone to his ansaphone one night when she was feeling sorry for herself. If only they'd get back together and allow the cameras in you can just imagine them as the new Patsy and Edina of primetime - particularly now that Pete is sporty a girly blonde hairdo.

Doherty also has a bit of comedy previous, and we aren't just talking about his farcical gigs with Babyshambles. The Libertines' first album was called Up The Bracket, which was a phrase used by the guru of grumpy comedy, Tony Hancock. The chaotic singer has always had a fondness for British sitcoms - maybe if they don't get back together this accident-waiting-to-happen songsmith should star in a solo 18-rated remake of Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em.