Aled Jones

Aled Jones dropped from Al Murray's ITV Christmas show

Aled Jones has been dropped from Al Murray's ITV Christmas show after sexual harassment claims.

Symfunny, comedy review

Jason Manford compered a strong line-up of comedy and music at the Royal Albert Hall in aid of Parkinson's.

Eyelashes on car headlights, slogan T-shirts and dill are among the candidates for Room 101 offered up by tonight's guests: child singer turned broadcaster Aled Jones, DJ Sara Cox and comedian Josh Widdicombe. The award for most controversial nomination of the evening goes to Widdicombe, who wants to pitch The Lord Of The Rings into oblivion - on the strength of its implausibility.

Radio Times review

Who would have thought that Aled Jones could ever have experienced anything more alarming than the moment his voice broke. But apparently he did and the story he tells tonight elicits gasps from the studio audience and makes his fellow guests (stand-up comedian Josh Widdicombe and DJ Sara Cox) squirm uncomfortably.

Among this week's pet hates nominated for Room 101 are slogan T-shirts, car lashes (yes, false eyelashes for your headlights), fish bones, dill and The Lord of the Rings. Despite Josh Widdicombe's efforts, the best jokes still come from Frank Skinner, who does a fabulous impression of a Tyrannosaurus Rex trying to eat its dinner from a plate, and a laughable attempt at crowd surfing.

This witty, take-no-prisoners satire ends with Hugh Bonneville and his Deliverance team preparing to hand over to the Live team (God help them). But there's still room for last-minute initiatives - Aled Jones being roped into a bell-ringing event called The Big Bong, for example - and disasters. If the Opening Ceremony fireworks end up being virtual rather than actual, you'll know why.

'Can we afford a last minute disaster or not?' wonders Hugh Bonneville's Ian Fletcher. The deliverance team manages to stumble over the finishing line tonight but, as ever, they're more Derek Redmond than Usain Bolt. Tonight's minor crises include a putative bell-ringing ceremony involving Aled Jones and a conceptual artist, and concerns about the fireworks at the opening ceremony triggering the ground-to-air missiles. Still, at least they haven't had to call in the army to provide security. The end hedges its bets slightly - surely this late in the day, writer John Morton must have been tempted to offer us some closure - but overall, this has been an exponentially multiplying delight and a triumph of English self-deprecation. Now to find out if the truth can be stranger than fiction...

With a certain sporting event looming, it's the last ever episode of this marvellous mockumentary. As the Olympic Deliverance Team prepare to hand over to the Live Team, last-minute panics still need resolving. The fireworks planned by Danny Boyle for the opening ceremony will trigger the Army's ground-to-air missiles. Charging stations for the official Olympic electric cars work so slowly, the entire fleet will soon be stationary. And the special "Big Bong" peal of church bells, supposed to ring nationwide, has so far attracted only two entries. Cue BlackBerry-addicted "branding guru" Siobhan (Jessica Hynes) salvaging the crisis by roping in a celebrity. Will she land Sting or settle for Aled Jones?

Just to add tension, three colleagues have applied for the same post-Games job, with the shortlist about to be announced. Come handover day, Lord Coe isn't around to make his planned speech, having been "called away to argue with animal rights groups about a sheep", so Ian (Hugh Bonneville) steps in. Can he make it a rousing send-off? And will his excruciating but rather moving romantic tension with PA Sally (Olivia Colman) be resolved? Smart, superbly played and painfully close-to-the-bone.