Alison Graham

I Want My Wife Back feels old-fashioned - and I like it

"Though I might like to think that my comedy heart is made of coal and coated in tar, I am a sucker for silliness."

And it's a good night from us to Ronnie Corbett

Alison Graham discusses growing up with The Two Ronnies, and Ronnie Corbett's impact on British culture.

Radio Times review

Still Open All Hours is one of those comedies that lasts just 30 minutes, yet by the end of the episode you swear you've just lost three hours.

Maybe it's something to do with the leisurely/laboured comedy business and the well-signalled slapstick, tonight involving a gag with a vacuum cleaner than anyone born before 1960 could see coming from 30 miles away in a North Sea fog.

But never mind, a gentle, unexamined life potters on inside that corner shop on an unspecified street in an unspecified era, as wily owner Granville (David Jason) takes delivery of a parcel from North Korea and tries to fix up hopeless Gastric with a date.

Radio Times review

Radio Times Top 40 TV Shows of 2015, #27:

Sally Wainwright's clever, confident love story returned, with thorns among the roses as Alan (Derek Jacobi) kept a huge secret from Celia (Anne Reid). But Celia had more than enough to think about as she turned her back on her daughter Caroline's wedding to her beloved Kate. Then there was crushing sadness to come as Wainwright, never a writer to plump up the cushions to make us comfortable, made us confront sudden death.

Radio Times review

It's easy to see why Roy Clarke's revival of his much-loved Ronnie Barker comedy Open All Hours is such a blazing hit. It takes its audience back to comfortable times, when being from Yorkshire was inherently funny, when men were hapless fools, women were either battleaxes or well-upholstered sirens and when everyone loved a bit of mild smut.

There isn't a mean bone in Still Open All Hours's body as grown men have silly fun with an over-sized Christmas tree, a sinister one-eyed Santa mannequin and a trampoline. Parsimonious local shopkeeper Granville (David Jason) remains at the mercy of the supernaturally self-operating till and the terrifying women get all the best lines. "How long since you were in curlers on a Wednesday afternoon?" wonders flinty Mrs Featherstone of comely Gladys Emmanuel.

Radio Times review

The "Friend" is Joanna Lumley, who accompanies David Walliams through an inevitably uneven, but more-winners-than-losers sketch show. There's a disturbing pastiche of The Great British Bake Off with Paul Hollywood (Walliams, alarming with hedgehog hair) and Mary Berry (Lumley) unable to conceal their lust for one another.

In what feels like an updating of Ronnie Barker's classic Mispronunciation Sketch, Walliams is a party guest who invented autocorrect, and he drags up to play a passive-aggressive, glowing orange tanning salon receptionist. But maybe you'll prefer his Oscar Wilde, or the businessman dad who gives his little daughter a bedtime story in bullet points.

Radio Times review

And you thought Not Going Out ended for good last Christmas when hopeless slacker Lee actually did the right thing for once and married the long-suffering Lucy.

But no, everyone is back for a special episode with a festive theme. A year on from the wedding and Lucy (Sally Bretton) is heavily pregnant, three days overdue with her and Lee's first baby. But the poor woman can't simply put her feet up and await the birth, she and Lee (Lee Mack) are embroiled in a hold-up at a department store. Their captor is Father Christmas himself.

All of the regulars return, including the estimable Katy Wix as dopey Daisy, and the gag count is as high as ever.

Radio Times review

After being hit on the head, terminal womaniser Steven Toast falls in love - with a man. And not just any man, but Jon Hamm, handsome star of Mad Men, who's making a film about Tommy Cooper in Dorset.

"I've literally never heard of him," Toast tells his giddy agent Jane Plough (pronounced Pluff). But once "the Hamm", as he is referred to throughout, walks through the doors of the decrepit Colonial Club, Toast (Matt Berry) is smitten. Not even he can resist the Hamm's fabled "charm and charisma" ("It's like black magic!").

Toast's puppy-like devotion - he makes Hamm a mix tape of marching tunes and spies on him as he undresses - is both idiotic and funny, and Hamm plays along with an admirable poker face. Watch out for guests Heida Reed (Poldark) and Brian Blessed as Toast's dad.

Radio Times review

Heaven knows, there's not much to laugh about in the news, which almost perversely means we need more than ever the pungent satire of Have I Got News for You. If we can't make fun of our fears, then we're lost.

Scotland's former First Minister Alex Salmond, now MP for Gordon at Westminster, is one of the guests. He has appeared on the show before, though some years ago, back when everyone, including him, had more hair.

Also trying to help us to forget our troubles is Sara Pascoe, a cheerful stand-up who's clever enough and observant enough not simply to be the female comedian who fills the "we need a woman" chair.

Hosting is everyone's favourite, the twinkly and urbane Alexander Armstrong. As MC of Pointless, he's king of the daytime quiz show, and also recently topped the classical music charts with his first album, A Year of Songs. Let's hope he gives us a tune.

Radio Times review

Comedian Susan Calman hyperventilates at the prospect of this week's topic: maths. "I'm phobic about maths," she wails to a sympathetic Stephen Fry, who guides her gently through a maths-based limerick. Future host Sandi Toksvig (who takes over next series, after Fry's retirement), however, thinks maths can be "beautiful". During a jolly episode where Alan Davies is outnumbered there to one by female contestants (including comedian Aisling Bea), we learn the difference between an anagram and an aptagram, and ponder whether rhesus monkeys can count.