Alison Graham

Radio Times review

I bet girls of all ages - little 'uns and young teens - love Miranda, and not just because its heroine, played by writer/actor/comic Miranda Hart, is so readily identifiable as a socially inept, galumphing owner of a joke shop whose lack of guile leads her into frequently cringe-making situations.

There's something innocent about Miranda, despite a handful of risque jokes. There was a running gag in the first episode about a consignment of chocolate penises, which some male comics would have killed stone dead with either smut or depravity. Yet in Miranda it was just silly and you'd have to be a Trollopian cleric to take offence.

The comedy in Miranda is old-fashioned, with a classic studio sitcom set up. Hart, making a virtue of her above-average height, throws herself into physical comedy.

I bet kids loved the bit in the first episode where she was on the dancefloor with her handsome crush and her skirt fell down, or when she fell over piles of boxes for no reason other than her awkwardness. Insecure girls, too, probably adore Miranda's refusal to be cowed by her prettier, more popular friends, a pair of screeching materialist harridans pixilated by thoughts of marriage and wedding dresses.

Television is engaged in a constant quest to find a family sitcom that, in theory, everyone can cosily sit down to watch without having to stop up granny's or the kids' ears with cotton wool during the mucky bits.

Somebody probably thinks that Big Top fits the bill perfectly, but they're wrong. In the case of Big Top "family friendly" means "not funny" and it's peppered with gags that are inappropriate for a family audience. But maybe in Miranda telly has found what it's long been looking for.

The Second World War pilots finally meet their match when they eye up a couple of comely lady air force personnel. "You see her, clocking my unit and all this... These girls are class though, isn't it?" But after a ham-fisted approach, the boys are in for a surprise. It's the last episode in the series, so I'll be sorry to say goodbye to the pilots and to archly filthy Brabbins and Fyffe (imagine Flanders and Swann crossed with Russell Brand) who tonight try to prove what swingers they are by singing a song about being gay. As for the new characters... well, some of them work and some of them don't. Hapless, clumsy historian Dr Dennis Lincoln-Park is a small joy, but the patronising Dr Tia is just a twerp. But the Public Information Film spoofs have been fun. Tonight's will strike a chord in anyone whose childhood was tormented by dire warnings about the dangers of abandoned fridges.

The invective weeps from the walls when two sultans of spin, Malcolm Tucker and Stewart Pearson, confront one another in a BBC radio studios corridor. The pair are doing a poor job of lurking behind the scenes as their two hapless puppets, Secretary of State Nicola Murray and her opposition counterpart Peter Mannion, unravel live on air on the Richard Bacon show. Murray's carefully nurtured agenda based on "inspiring people out of poverty" and "fourth sector pathfinders" (don't ask) tanks immediately and even the suave Mannion's "common sense checklist" is torpedoed before he even has chance to get going. Bacon (yes, it really is him) more than holds his own as his studio is invaded by shrieking apparatchiks and the chaos becomes almost Biblical - apart from the swearing, of course, which is as bracing and brilliant as a meteor shower. Along the way there are neat barbs aimed at people who send witless texts to radio shows, and Malcolm receives an offensive birthday cake.

It's party conference season and hapless Secretary of State of Social Affairs and Citizenship Nicola Murray is in Eastbourne with her team of self-serving apparatchiks. Of course, she's being stalked by the godfather of spin, Malcolm Tucker, who continues his pitiless assault on Murray's self-confidence. Tucker (Peter Capaldi) manages to torpedo Nicola's big conference speech by hijacking her "applause monkey", a media-savvy, Twitterwise member of the public with a sad story. Yet again, watching Armando Iannucci's withering satire is like being caught in a firestorm of expletives and deliriously offensive jokes. It's a relentlessly testosterone-charged world - Nicola Murray even remarks at one point "it's like being trapped in a boys' toilet" - that's packed with macho posturing from egomaniacal men behaving like competitive baboons. And it's brilliant.

First shown in March, this was one of the comic comebacks of the year. Though best known for co-writing Jerry Springer: the Opera, which made him the focus of a national hate campaign, Stewart Lee is a gifted stand-up with a laconic style. In the first instalment, his subject is books in general and so-called "celebrity hardbacks" in particular, which allows Lee, who looks a bit like a very young, very tired Morrissey, to give Jeremy Clarkson and Chris Moyles both barrels. The sketches don't work very well, but the rest is a treat.

This 2007 edition of the black political satire is packed with blood-drawingly sharp observations and ruthless, brilliant dialogue. As well as a lot of laughs. We eavesdrop on Peter Mannion (Roger Allam), a bemused politician who wonders if he's out of step with the modern world. Can he still call yobbos yobbos, for instance? Monstrous spin doctor Malcolm Tucker (Peter Capaldi) and his ferocious sidekick Jamie (Paul Higgins) are back with language that would make a modern rugby league team blush.

Surely that can't be seaside doctor Martin Ellingham striding across Westminster Bridge? Yes, that's him, walking as usual like a man who's just got off a horse, heading for a crucial interview that could clinch him the surgeon's job at a posh hospital in the capital. It's a successful visit, though Martin lies about overcoming his blood phobia, but the journey home on the train is more eventful, when an expansive Portwenn drunk drops dead in front of him. There are nice scenes involving a philosophical train guard: "I suppose it reminds you how precious life is...to live each moment like the last, carpe diem, hakuna matata," but the drama barely dents Martin's breeze-block facade. It's hard to believe Martin wants to turn his back on Portwenn and its deranged inhabitants. Who'd want to leave irritating, clingy schoolteacher Louisa, even though she's pregnant with Martin's baby? And surely Martin could never turn his back on his daft aunt, who imprisons a horrible schoolchild in a chicken coop.

Suddenly, all is right with the world, because Harry Hill's TV Burp is back. It's ITV1's greatest comedy asset - despite Burp's truckload of awards earlier this year and its towering viewing figures, does the channel realise this, I wonder - and it's just wonderful. Witty, funny, surreal and silly, TV Burp is what Saturday nights are for. There's no way of knowing what will be in the show, as it's recorded two days before transmission, but it's a fair bet Hill will find ripe comic harvests in the many ludicrous aspects of The X Factor and Strictly Come Dancing, and one of his more recent favourites, the gloriously idiotic Hole in the Wall. And ITV1 is spoiling us, because Burp is preceded at 7:00pm by the first in an (occasional) new series of the Hill-narrated New You've Been Framed! It's purely and uncomplicatedly funny, thanks to Hill's delightfully subversive narration. And all that camcorder footage of people falling off bikes, of course.

Jeremy is in love - so in love that he makes a special trip to Hastings to buy his girlfriend a loaf of her favourite spelt-flour bread. As bakery-based romantic gestures go, you have to admit, it takes some beating. Meanwhile, Mark's devotion to Dobby, the "anxious, self-hating man's crumpet", as he ungallantly describes her, only increases when the full horror of his impending parenthood with Sophie gradually dawns on him. But there is a little light in the darkness, as Mark decides to try for a job leading tourists on guided walks detailing the "mercantile history of the East End... no frills, no wigs, no spin, just telling it like it was." There are so many moments to treasure, most of them unprintable. But if you like your comedy literate, filthy, black and despairing then nothing but Peep Show will do. It's just brilliant.

Here's a welcome repeat from 2004, reminding us that Les Dawson, with his hangdog looks and bleak routines, was one of Britain's greatest comics. His diaries reveal his secret love of literature, but they are also shot through with doubt and disappointment, fear and insecurity. In many ways, Dawson's story is typical of so many comedians, who are tortured souls desperate to be taken seriously. But it's not all bleakness, for there are some sublimely funny moments. John Nettles and Jack Dee are among the contributors.