Bradley Walsh

Radio Times review

Do the names Chris Ramsey and Doc Brown ring only the faintest of bells? Then allow me to place tonight's stand-ups for you (alongside compere Jason Manford). Ramsey you'll recognise from his role in BBC Two sitcom Hebburn, where he played aspiring journalist Jack. Doc Brown is an actor, too, and played Bradley Walsh's oppo in Law and Order: UK. (He's also the brother of novelist Zadie Smith.) That's a lot of background info because, to be honest, there are no terribly quotable gags in their routines, but Brown's comedy rap to finish the show is worth seeing.

Radio Times review

My reaction of "Ah, Beat the Clock, the Tiller Girls, the goodbye wave from the revolving stage" was met with a blank look from the younger staff at RT. But viewers of a certain age will remember the variety show that was the cornerstone of ITV schedules during the late 1950s and early 60s.

It's being revived with guest hosts (Rob Brydon and Bradley Walsh among them, although it's the affable Stephen Mulhern tonight), who introduce a mix of famous acts and downright obscure ones. It's highly unlikely that the Tiller Girls will come out of retirement to kick off the show, though.

Watching Sarah Millican is like being gently tickled: strangely comforting and likely to produce the odd giggle. Tackling car shows, crime shows and quiz shows gives her the chance to make jokes about having George Michael as her sat nav voice and Countdown being easier now you can pause live TV. Bradley Walsh, Richard Osman and Quentin Willson respond to Millican's playful questions with grace, but the latter does look embarrassed when she talks him through her car's sanitary towel compartment.

Sarah Millican's whole deal is being quite a bit ruder than she looks like she's going to be. This works well for a stand-up, but it's a modus operandi that makes her harder to place in a TV setting. This show has the visual trappings of an early evening, shiny-floor affair, but with a mild smut factor more characteristic of the end of the pier.

Perhaps Millican should just go for broke and unleash the full gobshite - she might have to shuffle back to a later spot in the schedules but she'd surely be more comfortable with the situation.

Tonight's third series opener includes some low-level Top Gear baiting, a slightly awkward interview with Bradley Walsh and an encounter with Richard Osman from Pointless ('You filled Anne Robinson's old slot'). Not dislikeable, but still a bit of a muddle.

This week the show it features not one, but two, token women!

Josie Lawrence and Sarah Millican join host Rob Brydon and team captains Lee Mack and David Mitchell to help sort fact from fiction.

Also in tonight's episode we hear about the evil eye expression Huw Edwards employs during interviews.

And former Corrie star, game-show host and corpser extraordinaire Bradley Walsh fails miserably to maintain a poker face tonight.

His story - involving the theft of some mashed potato - will be submitted to the show's usual ruthless scrutiny, cross-interrogation and lightning wit.

"Talk about the Euro and do it with some level of insight!" demands David Mitchell of Lee Mack, in that pretend-outraged voice he uses a lot on this show. Mack gets his own back by demanding that Mitchell talk about last year's Carling Cup final. Neither of them can oblige, of course, but that's not the point: they're putting to the test the idea that Huw Edwards has an "evil eye" expression he uses to cut colleagues short in a studio discussion if they're going on too long. Edwards scowls a lot to demonstrate.

Sarah Millican, Josie Lawrence and Bradley Walsh are the other guests, with Walsh enjoyably corpsing as he tries to pretend he once stole mashed potato from his teachers.

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