Bruce Forsyth

National treasure, adored by the public, comic genius - it's become almost a cliche now for those qualities to go hand-in-hand with a troubled private life.

This one-off documentary explores the side of Tommy Cooper that audiences never got to see and suggests that in order to achieve all the success, fame and ­popularity that his career gave him, he made a deal with the devil to get it.

Not literally, although you won't find many people here with a good word to say about his life-long manager Miff Ferrie, who died in 1994. "He was the most unpleasant agent I've ever known. Nobody liked him," offers one interviewee in tonight's programme.

As well as having absolutely no sense of humour - a serious drawback when your clients include Tommy Cooper and Sir Bruce Forsyth, who also appears here - one of Ferrie's other eccentricities was to keep obsessively detailed records of every one of his phone ­conversations.

Perhaps he knew what a gift these would one day be to biographers and documentary makers because these never-before-seen documents form the backbone of this film, revealing new details about Cooper's drinking, his ­volatile marriage, and his equally rocky relationship with Ferrie himself.

But if you'd prefer to remember Cooper as the funny man with the fez on his head, there are plenty of classic clips of his stage act here, too.

The Impressions Show saw Debra Stephenson miss two open goals with Hilary Devey and Tulisa. But with her physique, her Mary Portas, Claudia Winkleman and Fiona Bruce were exactly like the real thing - only foxier.

Jon Culshaw on the other hand was such a car crash his impersonations were more fascinating. His 'Bruce Forsyth' was bang on - if it had been Alex Ferguson, while his 'John Bishop', was the spit of Laurence Llewelyn Bowen. Final score? Debra Stephenson 5 - Jon Culshaw 0.

When Rob Brydon launched this chat show last year, he said he was interested only in interviewing guests whose work he respected. That may sound like the kind of hot air any obsequious chat show host would spout, but in Brydon's case it may actually be true: among his guests in his two series to date have been Bruce Forsyth, Tom Jones, Ronnie Corbett and Terry Wogan, all of whom Brydon is well known to admire. Tonight's guest is another lifelong favourite of Brydon's, and indeed of most people in Britain who enjoy comedy: the majestic Dame Edna Everage, who's still going strong at... well, it wouldn't do to mention a lady's age, now, would it? There will also be a song from Will Young, and some stand-up from the startlingly young Phil Wang. We're sure Dame Edna will have the good taste not to draw attention to that surname.

No chat show audience screams louder than Alan's.

Did you hear them shrieking for One Direction last week? They went mental. So you might need ear plugs tonight as Alan cracks open the drinks cabinet one last time to welcome The Inbetweeners and Justin Timberlake for the final show of the series.

Justin's co-star Mila Kunis from his new rom-com Friends With Benefits will be joining him on the sofa too and there's music from fabulous Jessie J.

Over on the BBC, Rob Brydon's guests tonight are Bruce Forsyth and Sophie Ellis Bextor. No offence, Rob, but Alan's totally aced it this week.

For those not aware of this show, The Unbelievable Truth is a panel game, and as is law when it comes to panel games, it involves David Mitchell.

He acts as host of "the panel game built on truth and lies", in which four comics deliver a lecture on a subject which is mostly lies, except for five pieces of unlikely true information which have to be smuggled past the rest of the panel.

In this week's edition, Tony Hawks gave a 'lecture' on mice, Arthur Smith on Sir Walter Raleigh, Rhod Gilbert on soup, and Mitchell's 10 O'Clock Live co-star Charlie Brooker on his specialist subject of television.

The show is rather like QI, in that it is partly about unlikely trivia. Among the things mentioned were the fact that Bruce Forsyth first appeared on the TV before World War Two began and that Raleigh's widow kept his severed head in a velvet bag which she carried around with her (although this fact has already been on QI).

Mind you, a lot of the lies mentioned are things you really hope are true, such as Swindon having a "Day of the mouse" in which the mice get to rule the town, or Raleigh farting during the coronation of Charles I.

My only problem with The Unbelievable Truth is that I think some of the facts might be wrong. One of the things that regularly crop up is obscure but daft American laws, like how in Nebraska you have to brew soup if you are also selling beer. I always suspect that these 'laws' are just made up and just included because they sound funny.

First shown on BBC Four, the second half of Michael Grade's history of the variety era examines what happened to the entertainers once the theatres closed and TV cameras beckoned. He talks to stars who managed to make the transition from stage to screen, among them Bruce Forsyth, Des O'Connor and Ken Dodd. Grade also looks at Sunday Night at the London Palladium, plus the impact of Tommy Cooper and Morecambe & Wise.

Double acts: Today's comics & their vintage lookalikes

Nice to see you... Rob Brydon may say to a young Bruce Forsyth, for the Welsh funnyman looks remarkably like the television veteran in his younger years.

Enter a lost world of entertainment with this celebration of the post-war heyday of variety, in a BBC4 programme shown last month. Michael Grade is our qualified guide - he joined the family theatrical agency in 1966 - and delivers a warm and funny show, full of good anecdotes. That's because he lets veteran entertainers and agents do much of the talking - Val Doonican, Bruce Forsyth, Ken Dodd, Roy Hudd, Barry Cryer and Janet Brown among them. Although largely filmed at the London Palladium, many of their recollections concern the third rate halls, the "number threes" - Bilston Theatre Royal and Attercliffe Palace keep cropping up. They are unforgettable, but for all the wrong reasons, as are tales of theatrical digs. A parade of clips features comics, ventriloquists, dancers, jugglers and animal acts - from Max Miller to Memory Man, and Kardoma the flag act to Koringa the lady snake charmer. Nostalgia, social history, however you label it, there's nothing po-faced about this supremely entertaining show.

One episode should have been enough for this two-part documentary, which concludes by showing how television brought the demise of variety theatre and became the entertainment of choice. It's also achingly luvvie, as Grade recalls the heyday of the London Palladium ("the temple of show business") and talks to the entertainers who managed to make the transition from stage to small screen, among them Bruce Forsyth and Ken Dodd. Grade also looks at the impact of acts such as Morecambe and Wise, tells how ITV initially stole a march on the BBC in the variety stakes and gives a nod to an impresario who was a precursor to Simon Cowell.

Jim Davidson launches rant against Bruce Forsyth

Comedian Jim Davidson has branded Bruce Forsyth a "miserable old b*****d", who is kept on by the BBC only to avoid accusations of ageism.