Boris Johnson

This third episode might not have the grand follies of the first two (the pointless clock and disastrous coach trip), but is just as amusing in its incidental detail. Ian's smitten PA, Sally, relays a message from Boris Johnson: "It was a lot of gosh and piffle, and I think the end might actually have been in Latin." Infrastructure inadequate Graham is considering flight paths over Sizewell and Dungeness. It's now PR twerp Siobhan's turn to be exasperated - by Kay's inability to record a vlog. And the week's good news story about the Olympic aquatic centre is also scuppered by the discovery of a mass grave. The performances remain sharp, as are the satirical digs slyly uttered in passing.

Twenty Twelve is a timely satire following the travails of the fictional team behind the 2012 London Olympics. The mockumentary has been chronically overused of late, but Twenty Twelve can be forgiven, firstly because it works so well and secondly because writer/creator/ director John Morton pioneered the format with the brilliant People Like Us.

The show charts the many catastrophes, both large and small, that already beset the Olympic project long, long before any spike disturbs the asphalt or a javelin is hurled in anger.

Finding a sustainable use for a Tae Kwon Do stadium, sorting out traffic congestion, dealing with obstinate artists, channeling Boris Johnson's enthusiasm and launching a faltering countdown clock are amongst the challenges of episode one. In a delicious case of life imitating art, the actual 2012 countdown clock broke down on the day of its unveiling, shortly after the satire was broadcast.

Hugh Bonneville provides star power as project leader Ian, but every scene is shamelessly stolen by Jessica Hynes as ignorant, neurotic, gibberish-spouting public relations guru Siobhan. David Tennant, meanwhile, provides the straight-faced narration.

TV review: Twenty Twelve

Twenty Twelve has its moments, but Boris Johnson's ping pong speech will always be funnier

About 10 minutes in, The Morgana Show, a new comedy showcase for Channel 4, was going to get a really terrible review. The opening sketch - a gag about Boris Johnson at prep school - combined a weak impersonation with a silly and unfunny script. The Cheryl Cole and Dannii Minogue take-offs weren't much better and a sketch featuring Gilbert - a teenager with learning difficulties who stars in his own home-made television show - struck me as bullying in its comedy, the kind of television that will go down very well with callow 14-year-olds, but will make life absolute hell for any of their contemporaries unfortunate enough to wear bottle-bottom glasses. But then Morgana released the bully in me by doing a wickedly accurate impression of Fearne Cotton, a presenter who richly deserves all the mockery she can get. And I laughed at the running gag about Lady Gaga, glimpsed doing banal household tasks in wildly improbable costumes. By the end, I even laughed at Gilbert, thanks to the detail of Robinson's performance. But I'm not proud of myself.

We must part with our celebration of female- fronted comedy, thanks to The Morgana Show, a witless sketch vehicle for newcomer Morgana Robinson. Why has she got her own show? Is it because her agent is the powerful John Noel, who numbers Russell Brand among his clients? I wonder.

Like the similarly charmless Katy Brand, Robinson's toothless parodies of the likes of Boris Johnson and Cheryl Cole are an apolitical affirmation of the celebrity status quo, not an attack on it. They lack the backbone required for anything other than staggeringly uninspired whimsy.

And when Dom Joly escapes from the jungle, someone should alert him to The Morgana Show's suspiciously familiar bellowing mobile phone businessman. Shameless stuff.

Continuing Tuesday night's sour comedy hour, The Morgana Show is a brand new five-part sketch show that's similarly humorless and prolonged to Frankie Boyle's Tramadol Nights - although there's a glimmer of potential because its star, Morgana Robinson, is clearly a talented performer and mimic. It's just a shame the writing can't match her. Unusually, Channel 4 commissioned this show after being impressed by Morgana's self-made pilot, without testing the water by showing it as part of the Comedy Lab season, or on late-night E4.

It's great someone had faith in this show, and for someone like Morgana to be rewarded for her proactive nature in getting themselves a TV show made, but that made the disappointment of The Morgana Show itself cut even deeper. I wanted this to be a comedy treasure to discover and spread the word to others, but it turned out to be fool's gold.

It's another character-based sketch show; one with a slight League Of Gentlemen vibe, spliced with sketches you'd expect to see in a darker version of The Fast Show. Indeed, Morgana Robinson reminded me of Caroline Aherne at times, particularly during a sketch where she plays the owner of a funeral parlour married to an oafish husband. Other characters include: Madolynn, a prima donna Hollywood star now in her middle age; a pair of news reporters who trade insults with each other before the cameras roll; and homemade videos featuring a boy called Gilbert, filmed by his long-suffering granddad on a camcorder in the early-'90s. There are also a smattering of celebrity impressions: a good approximation of Cheryl Cole (seen reading an uncouth Dannii Minogue's Tarot cards backstage on The X Factor), Boris Johnson as a bumbling public schoolboy, and a truly uncanny Fearne Cotton (repurposed as a hyperactive daredevil stuntwoman, above-left).

By the end of this first episode, one thing was clear: Morgana Robinson's a talent in need of some good writers. Her Fearne Cotton impression was marvelous, and Gilbert is a convincing character with a lot of reality to him, but practically everything fell flat because it wasn't especially funny (no memorable punchlines or clever twists), and too many characters felt derivative (the monstrous actress cliché, bickering news reporters, etc.)

This could possibly be the most deranged variety show you'll ever see, the only place on earth where you can watch Christopher Biggins pretending to be Boris Johnson, and Jerry Hall impersonating Katie Price. If that doesn't draw you in, how about Joe Pasquale as Lady Ga-Ga? Or Ulrika Jonsson as David Beckham? No? Surely Vanessa Feltz masquerading as James May is irresistible. As is Eamonn Holmes as Elvis Presley. And David Gest as Elton John. Les Dennis as Gary Barlow... The list goes on, and just gets odder. The All Star Impressions Show could be completely awful or it could be enjoyably barmy. It certainly has a very good pedigree, being co-produced by Steve Coogan's and Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer's production companies. And it has a certain surreal gloss that could be quite winning. Harry Hill will make a guest appearance, though we don't know whether he will reprise the Morrissey impression that won him Celebrity Stars in Their Eyes all those years ago.

You spot the gag pretty quickly in Strangers On Trains (Radio 4), a new spoof in which presenter Nat Segnit shares the apparent results of a year spent recording conversations with men on trains. It's all entirely made up, but for the first few seconds, it feels real enough.

We have a middle-class, self-regarding presenter in Segnit, and he does dishevelled posh well, sounding like Jeremy Paxman crossed with Boris Johnson. Arh, he barked, I'm travelling around on trains all over the country, talking to strangers essentially. That 'essentially' was marvellously done.

In the next sentence, the spoof was revealed. From then, this became a patchy comedy, with some glistening moments - such as a Welsh postman who gets rather carried away with his community role - and some dull interludes, even in its brief 15-minute format.

Best of all was Segnit's narration, saying nothing much in pompous, ridiculous soundbites. There's something in particular about men on trains, he opined. Perhaps it's that sensation we get, staring out of the window. There is a wicked, funny spoof of radio features to be made. This wasn't it, but bits of this were horribly, brilliantly familiar to anyone who listens to a lot of Radio 4.