Alison Graham

You know you're in good hands with the wry, lugubrious Sean Lock, who is on fine form hosting the first of a new series of stand-up showcases from London's Apollo. Sadly, he's not on long enough, and the second half of the show is given over to the ubiquitous John Bishop who will remain for me, forever, an acquired taste. But Lock is worth the price of admission, with a routine that's centred mainly on his family life, with occasional surrealist flourishes (his theory about why the Pope wears a small white cap on his head is an interesting one). There are gags about the state of his car, and his daughter's conviction that, at six years old, she has grown out of CBeebies.

In the back of a cab on his way to meeting his best friend Hugh Laurie, Stephen Fry muses: "When you know someone really, really well you never actually talk about things." Both Fry and Laurie put that right in a hugely enjoyable, clip-strewn chat, their first television appearance together in 15 years. It's a loose, freewheeling, vastly funny get-together with Laurie, confident and no longer the self-effacing adjunct to Fry (that's what being the biggest TV star in the world does for you), leading things brilliantly. "I think I made a girl laugh in a bar," says Laurie of his Cambridge comedy years. "So many stories start that way " Fry giggles helplessly as the pair reminisce in what Laurie describes as "a beautifully prepared conversation pit" in lovely Eltham Palace, south-east London. They look back at old A Bit of Fry and Laurie sketches, talk of their love for one another, and Laurie offers a word of caution to the unwary about his techno-fan friend: "If Stephen asks you to look at something on his computer screen, run for your f*****g life."

Steve Coogan, fretful, vain and self-absorbed, thinks he might have met the female photographer who has arrived to take his picture somewhere before. This kind of thing is always a worry to the comedian, who tells his agent, "They [people in general] remember meeting me, but I don't remember meeting them." It's another corking instalment of Michael Winterbottom's funny, acute improvised observation of the odd, frequently jagged friendship between Coogan and Rob Brydon, his travelling companion on a northern road trip reviewing restaurants. Brydon is the more appealing, doing impressions during a difficult dinner with a peevish Coogan, his agent and said photographer. There's a brittleness to the fictionalised (or is it?) Brydon/Coogan relationship that gives The Trip its delicious edge.

There's one really good, really funny joke here that's not so much a sight gag, more a sound gag. It comes almost at the end and is worth hanging around for. You'll have to sit through some pretty ordinary sketches first, though, including a long-winded sequence involving two boorish, shouty businessmen that owes far too much to Fry and Laurie's Uttoxeter-based executives John and Peter. (And fans of F and L will rejoice in the fact that they are reunited at 9pm this Wednesday on Gold.) The text-a-vicar sketch is fun, though - a cute send up of those soggy text-dating TV adverts. But, alack, tonight there are no Second World War pilots. Shame. Isn't it?

Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon arrive in the Lake District on the third leg of their blokey odyssey reviewing restaurants in country houses. In what turns out to be quite a commercial for the Holbeck Ghyll hotel near Lake Windermere, the pair bicker again over dinner; Coogan, insecure and nervy, Brydon slightly precious and anxious to please. It's all terribly knowing, self-referential and, possibly, more in love with itself than is healthy. But I laughed a lot - proper laughter, too: actually out loud. You don't get that with BBC2 comedies, as a rule. Or with BBC1 comedies, come to that. Coogan and Brydon are a perfect brittle partnership. There's also a slightly tragic edge as we watch two middle-aged men needle each other ("You can't treat your entire life like a Radio 4 panel show"), while at the same time they seek some kind of affirmation. Smashing.

Martin Clunes's affability and a smattering of good lines rescue this re-imagining of the Leonard Rossiter classic from complete pointlessness. I particularly enjoyed Reggie and his adored Jasmine's discussion about her lack of a boyfriend; Jasmine: "Men are damaged, gay, ugly or married." Reggie: "Snow White's less well-known friends." But Reggie is in trouble. Grot is doing thunderously well with its terrible products and his evil boardroom bosses want to slim down Groomtech ready to sell it to the highest bidder. When he breaks the news of imminent redundancy to his staff, there is much elaborate special pleading. Things aren't much better at home where Reggie's neglected wife Nicola (Fay Ripley) is jobless and moping, and finding it hard to fend off the attentions of her randy next-door neighbour (Alexander Armstrong).

Abigail's Party is routinely found in the upper reaches of those "best ever TV drama" lists and quite right, too. Mike Leigh's suburban satire, little more than a filmed stage play when it was first broadcast as a Play for Today in 1977, is painfully brilliant. And it belongs entirely to Alison Steadman as Bev. Ah Bev, castrating monster and Demis Roussos devotee who, during the course of one memorable night, sails through a terrible drinks party like a Dreadnought with a hostess trolley. It is one of the great television performances. Bev is both grotesque and hilarious, with her nasal drone and towering lack of sensitivity ("Ange, can you take a little bit of criticism?"). Steadman earlier discusses Bev, and other characters from her remarkable career, with Mark Lawson. She's nice, modest and a complete professional.

The Second World War pilots with their 21st-century-teen sense of entitlement go shopping for a picnic, though they don't have enough food coupons, and they aren't best pleased with the shopkeeper: "Not giving us what we want is actually against our rights... it might make us experience issues." The pilots are still far and away Armstrong and Miller's most endearing characters, though the suave, elderly vampires are very winning. Tonight they arrange to meet a couple of virgins they ran into at Thorpe Park. Unfortunately, though the rendezvous is awash with celibate young ladies, the lads make a crucial miscalculation. By the way, if you have ever thought it was time that someone took the mickey out of tiresomely enthusiastic al fresco Geordie cooks the Hairy Bikers, meet Flint and Rory, two tiresomely enthusiastic al fresco Geordie cooks.

After Jonathan Ross announced he was leaving the BBC, there was a frenzy of torrid speculation about his possible Friday Night with Jonathan Ross replacement. Which was ridiculous for two reasons: (a) it was only a chat show and (b) it had to be Graham Norton. Every half-baked pop star, every failing, narcissistic actor thinks that hosting a chat show is the easy route to riches because, surely, there's nothing to it. But Norton, more than anyone, shows all these no-hopers it needs consummate skill and an almost frightening ability to think on your feet. Norton is brilliant and so much better than Ross because he is able to spark and then sustain a proper conversation. And he's flipping funny. Tonight's opener features fiery songstrel Charlotte Church, Hollwood actress Maggie Gyllenhaal and comedian Russell Howard, without whom no panel game or chat show is complete. Or so it seems.

Noel Fielding, who looks like a cross between Sandie Shaw and Russell Brand, is tonight's headline act. But the Bristol audience isn't sure how to deal with him. There's a bit of reserve and possibly even bafflement in the applause. Which is perfectly understandable, as Fielding's brand of delicate surrealism withers under the glare of a broad-brush comedy show. Much more mainstream are John Sessions lookalike Hal Cruttenden, who does a very good camp Alexander the Great; Seann Walsh and his routine about why people don't use moving walkways in airports; and Mike Gunn, who makes jokes about his wife. But, as always, it's McIntyre the audience has really come to see and he wins them over completely with his impression of a rail ticket inspector and his account of reading the bedtime story on CBeebies.