Alison Graham

Radio Times review

Steven Toast, the volcanic, pathologically self-absorbed actor, emerges from the debacle of a Lorraine interview stricken with stage fright. He's doing Macbeth in the open air in Regent's Park but is blissfully unaware, until Lorraine tells him, that it's being screened live for ITV's Night of Culture.

It's a thin episode to open a new series of the cult, award-winning comedy, with far too few rank idiocies and not enough laughs. Still, Clem Fandango, the hipster buffoon who torments Toast (Matt Berry) from behind the mixing desk in the voiceover studio, is back - as is the lubricious Mrs Purchase (Tracy-Ann Oberman). But a central story featuring Toast, Stanley Kubrick and a fake Moon landing needs more oomph.

Radio Times review

In the 1970s, young Danny Bakers chaotic east London home was always packed with knocked-off gear secured by his lairy geezer of a docker dad. Once, most memorably, continental quilts (that's duvets to you, young people): "It was like living in a huge bag of marshmallows," says 15-year-old Danny in the voiceover.

Baker and writer Jeff Pope have adapted Baker's autobiography Going to Sea in a Sieve into this cheerful eight-part comedy, headed by Peter Kay who ditches those rich Lancashire tones for a gorblimey cockney accent as dad Spud.

Spud always has an eye to the main chance, pinching from the cargo holds of ships he unloads at the docks. There's a funny scene when he and his mates steal a snifter from a barrel of what they think contains booze. "Trust me," says Spud, to his understandably sceptical friends.

Radio Times review

Boy Meets Girl is a comedy, but you probably won't laugh aloud. Though equally probably you might end up wearing a soppy smile, because it's a sweet, thoroughly modern love story.

Leo (Harry Hepple), jobless and still living at home in Newcastle with his parents and his slacker brother, meets an older woman, Judy, in a bar. The attraction is instant, she's funny and friendly, and Leo falls head first.

But on their first date, Judy (Rebecca Root) throws a surprise into the conversation. As Boy Meets Girl is clearly anxious to be seen as a romance, rather than any kind of trailblazer, it feels, from time to time, a bit slender. But the leads will win you over.

Radio Times review

Oh Viv, what have you done? In the last episode the serial murderer of women with Down's syndrome was discovered, but our favourite coarse cop acted with outrageous disregard for the law.

She decides to deal with things her way and has to make Dinah her confidante. But will it catch up with both of them? As Paul Abbott's punchy crime drama ends, things get messy, in all senses; there's a grotesque murder and the script wanders all over the place. It seems to be striving for some kind of Hitchcockian black comedy a la The Trouble with Harry or even Rope, but fails.

Still, Viv (Joanna Scanlan) et al are a great team. Here's hoping we see them again.

Radio Times review

Well, he said he's be back - and he is. Arnold Schwarzenegger is on the red sofa, proving that a sex scandal, an illegitimate child with the maid and a political career can't keep an actor from cinema screens for too long. Nor from British television, with those arch insurance ads.

Schwarzenegger will be plugging Terminator Genisys (not a spelling error) with his co-star Emilia Clarke (Game of Thrones). She plays Sarah Connor, mum of world-saving John Connor and of course Schwarzenegger is a cyborg with a heart.

Also guesting are Jake Gyllenhaal and model/actress/staple of every glossy magazine, Cara Delevingne. Music is supplied by Tinie Tempah.

Radio Times review

Dinah and Viv look askance at all of their closest colleagues, all of whom are under suspicion as the hunt for the serial killer creeps towards a conclusion. And when the answer is finally revealed in the penultimate episode of Paul Abbott's deft thriller, it's a shocker.

But there are other cases to occupy the time of the raggle-taggle gang of Manchester detectives. A top surgeon is shot dead at point blank range, apparently at random, as he takes his daily jog. When the cops dig deeper, they find that though the victim might have been a genius in the operating theatre, he was an appalling failure as a human being, a bully and a tartar.

Radio Times review

Graham Norton will have good reason to feel anxious before this show, with Mark Wahlberg as a returning guest. Last time the actor appeared on the red sofa he was rather, ahem, refreshed.

It was an excruciating hour as Wahlberg sat on Norton's knee and stroked his chest, to the host's obvious embarrassment ("OK, that's wrong, don't touch the man there") as he shooed the slurring star away.

So let's see if Wahlberg can steer clear of the red wine when he guests with Seth MacFarlane to talk about their new film, Ted 2, the follow-up to the foul-mouthed but curiously touching Ted. Music is from Cyndi Lauper, the girl who just wants to have fun.

Radio Times review

An outraged suspect demands of Det Insp Viv Deering: "Are you threatening me?" To which comes the reply: "I think so." Viv and the team are called on to protect a man who's been attacked and is under siege from a howling mob.

The victim's back story is both shocking and surprising, and Everyman cop Spike (the admirable Will Mellor) looks askance, annoyed that he has to keep safe the lowest of the low.

But of course there has to be a crack in Spike's flinty exterior, and we soon see him softening and being soppy with his kids in a scene that doesn't at all fit in with No Offence's general air of brutal pragmatism.

Meanwhile, detective sergeant Joy Freers (Alexandra Roach) is gaining confidence and steadily learning to lead. "Well done, you were nearly me in there," says Viv, admiringly, after Joy conducts a particularly sharp interview.

Radio Times review

Great crimes come to light from the most unlikely beginnings in Paul Abbott's fearsomely flinty crime drama, as Detective Constable Dinah Kowalska discovers, lurching to a stop on the drive to work - a pedestrian appears deliberately to have walked in front of a car.

But as Dinah and her team prepare to deal with the brutal realities of a sudden death when they visit the victim's family, they uncover something much bigger - an illegal trade in human organs.

Someone's targeting people in desperate debt, and persuading them that the best way to settle up is by selling their kidneys. It's a huge case with enormous implications, but the cops run straight at it, at the same time as they pursue the serial killer who's targeting women with Down's syndrome.

And the boss, Detective Inspector Viv Deering (Joanna Scanlan) has other problems when her partner turns up drunk in the cells.

Why we need more bold drama like No Offence

Creating brave TV like Paul Abbott's cop drama isn't a criminal act, says Alison Graham.