Alex Jones (II)

Radio Times review

No sooner has she left The One Show sofa, the ubiquitous Alex Jones is back, this time on the panel show in which participants attempt to hoodwink their opponents with absurd facts and plausible lies about themselves. It's all in good fun, and host Rob Brydon and team captains David Mitchell and Lee Mack know how to squeeze the maximum amount of laughter from each absurd suggestion. Comedy actor Greg Davies, performance poet John Cooper Clarke and TV presenter Rick Edwards are also along for the ride in this edition.

BBC1 now offers three solid hours of breezy game shows on Saturday nights. None, though, offers a game as inspired as the "Life's a Speech" round inflicted by the puppets here on their guest celebrities. It's the one where contestants have to read a speech from an autocue, but with bits missing that they have to fill in on the fly.

I don't suppose Alex Jones will ever live down being unable to fill in the blank for the name of the President of the United States, while Jack Dee's devotion to mental arithmetic (he has to work out 425 divided by 25) is touching. Elsewhere, in the distractingly good backstage sections, music buff Eddie wants to ask Mancie out, mad scientist Dr Strabismus dons a dress, and there's a good throwaway gag about Fiona Bruce.

I know some viewers are still unsure about Room 101's new three-guest format, but it's steadily becoming my favourite TV panel show. And it was great to see Cilla Black on there the other week after such a long absence from primetime TV.

This week's star, though, was Alex Jones, who railed against people who enjoy repeat viewings of movies because, 'Watching the same thing over and again is a waste of your life.' Good job The One Show viewers don't think like that.

Glamping is an unlikely TV theme tonight, cast in two very different roles. Over on Great Night Out, it's a positive holiday option, but here in Frank Skinner's domain, it's being proposed for disposal in Room 101 by actor/comedian Jack Whitehall. It's what bugs him most about the great outdoors, while for The One Show's Alex Jones, it's seagulls. But the controversial choice for presenter Clive Anderson is Bambi's extended family - until meeting special guest Arthur changes his mind.

If Frank Skinner's ad libs are the real thing and not carefully pre-arranged, then they're little comedy gems.

There's a moment tonight when Clive Anderson has proposed consigning British deer, or a large proportion of them, to Room 101 and in the process he points out that there are three million deer in Britain now. To which Jack Whitehall quips, "All they need is a leader!" It's a nice idea - of the deer rising up as one in a horned rebellion. Then Skinner chimes in: "Maybe the Dalai Lama?" It's quick, silly and typical of his ability to juice up the joke quota.

Not that he needs to much this week: Anderson, Whitehall and Alex Jones make a great panel. It's the sparkiest episode yet.

While some panel shows are having trouble finding their footing, Would I Lie To You? just seems to keep going from strength to strength.

Rob Brydon, David Mitchell and Lee Mack seem to make a perfect team. There's so many angles for them to play with: Mitchell's poshness verses Mack's working class background; Mitchell's southerness and Mack's northerness; Mitchell and Mack's Englishness verses Brydon's Welshness, and so on.

There is one significant change to this new series, however, that being the show is now on before the watershed. This, for me, is a worry. You may remember that this happened to QI when it moved to BBC One, which ended up as a failure and resulted in QI moving back...

However, it would seem that it's survived this changed. The show seems to be just as funny as ever, especially the bit when Mack trying to claim that his ex-girlfriend's names spell out the world "Bermuda". The guests, Alexander Armstrong, Mel Giedroyc, Alex Jones and Chris Tarrant, provided much amusement too.

Jason Manford & Alex Jones talk about The One Show

Christine Bleakley may have made enemies at the BBC after quitting The One Show.
But she's done wonders for the careers of stand-up comic Jason Manford and little-known Alex Jones.