Alison Graham

Radio Times review

Caroline and Kate's big day is approaching, but snippy Celia still refers to her daughter's upcoming nuptials as if they are written in italics, or with inverted commas, as in "It's the day before the... wedding".

Oh dear, the prickles on Celia's personality are drawing blood all over the place in Sally Wainwright's bittersweet family drama. Wainwright - and the mighty Anne Reid - are so clever. Celia could easily have been written and acted as a nice, comfy old dear who's found late-life happiness.

Instead she's a complicated woman made brittle by betrayal, wounded by the antics of an adulterous husband. The scars have never healed and Celia judges everyone by the toughest of standards. It makes her hard to like, but it also makes her only too human. Her husband Alan tries to make peace but he's unwisely keeping a big secret from her.

Radio Times review

Mrs Featherstone, perpetually dressed in her widow's weeds and a joyless, soul-sucking presence, knows a few things about life: "There's all this fuss about orgasm, but watching your money grow is all the excitement a body needs." It's a great line, made mighty by the magnificent Stephanie Cole.

Elsewhere there's a boob gag within the opening seconds as young Leroy admires the cleavage of one of the many women who crowd his life. His dad Granville (David Jason) is similarly rapt, though of course his gaze was elsewhere: "I liked her hair..."

Throw in some comedy business with a stepladder and one of the Chuckle Brothers and it could be any time between the 1920s and the 1970s.

Radio Times review

There's nothing quite like the literate, deliciously surreal, controlled madness of a Bill Bailey gig. He's brilliant, as deft with music as he is with words, and he makes it all look so easy.

Qualmpeddler was his 2012-13 tour and it's a hilarious stew of stand-up and musical numbers that transcend anything that can be classed as a "comedy musical pastiche". Like Bailey's version of the Downton Abbey theme, which is a reggae/trance anthem accompanying characters listing types of spoon; "tea spoon, egg spoon, grapefruit spoon".

Another highlight is Bailey's reworking of the Match of the Day tune that sounds like it's the harpsichord centrepiece of a musical evening in a Georgian drawing room. Glorious.

Radio Times review

Esio Trot (it's "tortoise" backwards) is a drama of the type that broadcasters save up for Christmas and New year, when we are all feeling a bit soppy, mellow and disinclined to be too critical.

It's the slightest of stories, a tale as thin as a fairy's wings, which isn't to say it's not heart-warming and rather sweet. There's just not much to it. Still, with Dustin Hoffman and Judi Dench as leads, and James Corden as a cheerful (onscreen) narrator, Richard Curtis and Paul Mayhew-Archer's adaptation of the Roald Dahl book is a starry confection.

Hoffman is lonely, diffident Mr Hoppy, who has long nurtured a secret love for lively, glamorous, rather brassy neighbour Mrs Silver (Dench). The pair exchange polite pleasantries on their balconies and Mr Hoppy thinks he's in with a chance, if only he were bold. Then Mrs Silver buys a tortoise called Alfie, who becomes the object of all of her affections.

Radio Times review

It's pelting with rain in Tilling, and the dark skies herald bad news for reigning queen of the social scene, Lucia, when she hears that a fluent Italian speaker is to visit and wants to chat.

The conceit is, of course, that Lucia and her confirmed bachelor best friend Georgy Pilson (Anna Chancellor and Steve Pemberton) pretend that they love nothing more than whiling away hours together talking Italian. But they know just a few phrases.

I'm well aware that this sounds like torpid tosh, the kind of petit bourgeois nonsense that maybe people cared about in the 1930s when E.F. Benson wrote his Mapp and Lucia books, but why should anyone bother in the thrusting, connected 21st century?

Maybe they shouldn't, but as a piece of escapist confectionary, this is hard to beat. Au reservoir!

Radio Times review

The piquant minutiae of Tilling make the world of Mapp and Lucia go around. It's about bridge parties and who takes tea with whom. Since Lucia's arrival the social map has been re-drawn now that she dominates its cultural life, to the exclusion of its grinning once-grande dame, Elizabeth Mapp.

In the second episode of Steve Pemberton's adaptations, the quaint town is thrilled by the arrival of a mysterious Indian gentleman who claims he is a "guru". He is immediately annexed by a ravenous Mapp (Miranda Richardson, outrageous teeth bared) who aims to run him while excluding her arch rival and nemesis, Lucia (Anna Chancellor, oh-so-chic).

Devotees of E.F. Benson's Mapp and Lucia books will know that the guru didn't visit Tilling (he went to Riseholme) but no matter, it's another deliciously snooty hour.

Radio Times review

Miss Elizabeth Mapp, all big teeth and buttery smiles, is the queen of Tilling, ruling the social and cultural life of her dinky little seaside town like a cloche-hatted monarch.

But Mapp's reign is threatened by the arrival in Tilling of chic, elegant Emmeline Lucas, known to all as Lucia, so glamorous in her widow's weeds. The stage is set for war over the bridge tables as the women battle for supremacy.

Fans of E.F. Benson's peerless 1930s Mapp and Lucia series of comic novels should be thrilled by Steve Pemberton's careful adaptations for this three-part series (he's a huge fan and plays Lucia's fey, platonic friend Georgie Pilson).

Miranda Richardson, who's Mapp with a terrifying set of gnashers and a touch of the Margaret Thatchers, and Anna Chancellor, in a series of fabulous vintage dresses, are just marvellous as the rivals. The whole thing is the campest of treats.

Radio Times review

There's a lovely opening to the third series of Sally Wainwright's warm, spiky drama as Alan tells Celia a funny shaggy-dog story over their Valentine's Day meal.

It's so typical of Wainwright, who has such a wonderful eye and ear for the little moments in relationships, the daft jokes and the shared humour. You'll be glad that she and Last Tango are back.

Alan and Celia (Derek Jacobi and Anne Reid) are settling into married life. But this story has never been just about them. Celia's daughter Caroline (Bafta-winner Sarah Lancashire) is settling into life with her beloved, pregnant Kate (Nina Sosanya). And Gillian (Nicola Walker), once so unhappy in that grim farm on the moor, has a date with a handsome man (played by Rupert Graves).

It's simply good to see everyone again, even though we know that this will never be, thank heavens, a story full of hearts and flowers. There are thorns, too.

Radio Times review

Still Open All Hours is a comedy arcadia, with jokes about "the wife", women in nighties, barmaids of easy virtue and unruly umbrellas. It has a curiously ageless feel too - its men wear ties and jumpers, like dads did in the 1950s, there are battleaxe women, and there's no sign of new technology. The world of that northern corner shop exists entirely in its own gently nostalgic bubble.

In the second episode of the new series, tight-fisted retail king Granville (David Jason) resorts to desperate measures to lure in a man who always conspicuously gives the shop a miss as he heads for the Co-Op. He's still trying to secure quality romantic time with his adored Mavis, and he gets a strange proposition from Mrs Featherstone (the magnificent Stephanie Cole).

Radio Times review

Agatha Raisin, a brittle London PR with a sharp bob and spiked heels, gives up her fast-paced life for the peace of a honey-coloured thatched cottage nestling in the Cotswolds. But her attempts to fit into the life of the village of Carsely backfire horribly when the local roué is poisoned by a quiche that Agatha submitted to the village show.

Agatha is the charmless amateur-sleuth heroine of a string of bluntly jolly books by MC Beaton. OK, this isn't The Wire, but it will, ahem, kill a couple of hours on a night when you'll possibly welcome something that makes no demands on you whatsoever. Ashley Jensen makes a chic, lively Agatha and the Cotswold scenery is, of course, chocolate-box perfect.