Andrew Flintoff

Interview: Andrew Flintoff reflects on his career

Andrew 'Freddie' Flintoff has battled booze, bulimia and depression in his time, and his show at this year's 
Edinburgh Fringe covers the lot with gruff charm and good comic timing. In real life, though, the beer monster of old has become a much more sober character.

Radio Times review

In the publicity blurb, guest Stephen Fry is described as "the nation's favourite polymath" (because our nation has so many polymaths). But we should add the words "newly married" after Fry wed his partner Elliott Spencer.

In his first television appearance since the wedding, Fry will doubtless give us all the details of a very low-key ceremony at a Norfolk register office. The occasion was marked by Fry on Twitter as "Gosh. Elliott Spencer and I go into a room as two people, sign a book and leave as one."

Also on the sofa are Andrew Flintoff, star of Sky 1's Lord of the Fries (oh dear) where the cricketer takes a chip van around the country, and comedian Kevin Hart.

James Corden returns to referee the seventh season of the knockabout sports quiz that, thanks to its success, has pulled in a bigger budget - and they're gonna use it.

So if the prospect of comedy rally driving, bouncing around in plastic balls and a military assault course involving Jack Whitehall, Jimmy Carr and team skippers Andrew Flintoff and Jamie Redknapp sounds like your idea of fun, then this is the show for you.

Think Top Gear meets Total Wipeout.

A seventh series of the quiz that makes A Question of Sport look like Pathé newsreel of over-60s crown green bowling. These days the quiz questions are few and far between: with money almost visibly dripping from the screen, it's all about big stunts and big-name comics.

Tonight, the regulars - Jack Whitehall, Jimmy Carr, Jamie Redknapp, Andrew Flintoff and host James Corden - go rally-driving with near-fatal consequences, play football against Edgar Davids while stuck in giant plastic bouncy balls, and complete a hellish military assault course. In between are some very funny pre-arranged zingers - mostly delivered by Whitehall, so if you're not one of those people who's violently allergic to him, you're in business.

Series six of the comedy sports quiz that wasn't on air during the Olympics, but became a nice footnote in the Team GB story. When Mo Farah triumphed, people asked how he came up with his "Mobot" celebration. The answer was that he'd had it created for him: when he'd appeared on A League of Their Own, fellow guest Clare Balding had invented it and host James Corden had named it. Farah is back on the show tonight alongside gymnast Louis Smith and team captains Andrew Flintoff and Jamie Redknapp.

The latest city to put up - and indeed put up with - outspoken comedian Jack Whitehall is Manchester, where he's hanging out with cricket legend Andrew Flintoff and hip-hop artist Maverick Sabre. There's a spot of cross-dressing too, although Vera Gwendolyn sounds like a rather old-fashioned drag queen alter-ego for someone as young and trendy as Whitehall.

While its antecedent, They Think It's All Over, managed to show the surprisingly sharp side of sporting figures such as David Gower and Steve Davis, A League Of Their Own merely plays down to expectations. Team captains Andrew Flintoff and Jamie Redknapp, though likable enough, aren't terribly interesting, leaving the burden of entertainment on James Corden and his interchangeable support staff of panel-show comics, which, for this fourth series, includes Jack Whitehall, Jason Manford and Lee Mack.

A big guest straight off the bat for series four: Andy Murray, taking a break from tantalising losses in Grand Slam semis. In the last series, Tim Henman fired serves at the show's regulars. How can Murray top that? By picking up a microphone to reveal his talent for rapping, backed by regular host James Corden.

The show's also held onto star players John Bishop and Andrew Flintoff, along with Jamie Redknapp and Georgie Thompson. Other guests are comic Jason Manford, and Southampton legend Matt Le Tissier.

Here's an exclusive: cricketer Andrew Flintoff used to collect soaps when he was a youngster. "It doesn't really fit with my image, does it... my soap addiction?" he says, looking a little shame-faced at his admission. John Bishop's topic this week (we've already had music and fashion and food) is hobbies and leisure time, which means some seaside-pier-style routines from him on the perils of buying underwear for your wife and childhood memories of the fun you could have with a lolly stick. But it's the filmed contributions that made me laugh most. You've got to love WI member Jackie Huck with her shoebox collection of erasers, one of which, she says excitedly, smells like a custard cream.

A third series of the sports quiz that makes A Question of Sport look square and stilted. Not that A Question of Sport needs any help. The banter feels a lot closer to how sportspeople really talk - letting them swear is a good start - but it's the stunts and games that make it. Highlights of last year's run included series regulars Andrew Flintoff and Georgie Thompson answering quick questions for as long as their team-mate Jimmy Carr could bear to sit in an ice bath, and Phillips Idowu leaping over all five other panellists, plus host James Corden, Evel Kneivel-style. Of course it isn't funny all the time, and moving to hour-long episodes seems risky, but the moments when it flies are worth waiting for.