Charlie Brooker

The penultimate episode of Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong's slightly strange drama/comedy proposition, and the show remains perched on the edge of a Charlie Brooker-style dark drama, without quite breaking through. Still, there is some strong satire, great acting and excellent jokes. As ever, the armed response guys get the best lines, even in the middle of a cover-up ("I've shot him in the back. You can't make it out on these cameras"), while Liz attempts to turn a missing child into a career opportunity.

Black Mirror Xmas Special: new plot details & pictures

The new episode of Charlie Brooker's satire stars Jon Hamm, Rafe Spall and Oona Chaplin and tells a chilling story about "blocking" people in real life - just as we do on Facebook and Twitter.

Jon Hamm is not who you'd expect in Black Mirror

The Mad Men actor's role in Charlie Brooker's satire may surprise us...

Black Mirror to return for a Christmas special

Charlie Brooker's Black Mirror to return for a Christmas special on Channel 4
The one-off special, called Yuletide, is billed as "the most mind-bending Black Mirror yet".

Charlie Brooker's police drama spoof returned for a third double bill last week, with DI Jack Cloth (John Hannah) and Suranne Jones's DI Anne Oldman (pronounced "an old man", a joke that - honestly - only improves with repetition) investigating the death of Cloth's brother. To describe the comedy as hit and miss would be an understatement: Brooker unselfconsciously bombards the audience with material that veers from the tedious to the sublimely silly.

Tim Key Q&A - follow along live!

Enigmatically droll comedian Tim Key is in Edinburgh with his show Single White Slut, and he's answering your questions now. He's collaborated with everyone from Steve Coogan to Charlie Brooker, and is perhaps the UK's worst - and funniest - poet. So what do you want to ask him?

It's co-written by Charlie Brooker and Daniel Maier, whose writing credits include Harry Hill's TV Burp, and there's a lot of Burp in both the affectionate spoofing of British television conventions and the relentless onslaught of silliness. The convoluted plots of police procedurals usually require some viewer concentration, but here it's the gags that have you reaching for rewind on the TiVo remote. There are so many of them - visual, verbal, saucy and slapstick - that to watch A Touch of Cloth is to be constantly plagued by the fear that you've missed something brilliant.

Casting John Hannah as DI Jack Frost and Suranne Jones as DC Anne Oldman (pronounced "an old man") is a particular joy, given both of them have often appeared in exactly the kind of series ridiculed here. It wouldn't be half as much fun to have a comedian deliver lines like, "You never get used to the way you get used to it and that takes some getting used to" and keep a straight face.

This season there's also new blood in the shape of Doctor Who's Karen Gillan as... er... Kerry Newblood. It's an opportunity to send up all those clichés pertaining to rookies, of which there are plenty. Not that there's any danger of the writers running out of material. As long as TV's obsession with grisly murders and maverick cops continues, there'll always be a case for DCI Cloth to solve.

Radio Times review

A third outing for Charlie Brooker's Naked Gun-style cop spoof, although the comparison's becoming fainter and fainter. This is the strongest instalment yet, because the show's built up its own armoury of bad puns, ridiculous direction and smashed fourth walls. It no longer needs to bother about specifically spoofing individual crime dramas, either.

The story, as if that's important, concerns a serial killer who seems to be linked to a sinister therapy spa. Adrian Dunbar plays its powerful owner, doing a particularly good maniacal laugh that goes on for much too long. Karen Gillan is a bit underused as the squad's naive new flibbertigibbet, but that's fine because regular stars John Hannah and Suranne Jones are better than ever at straight-faced, dignity-shredding baloney. Keep looking out for the signs on the wall behind them.