Charlie Brooker

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.

A Touch Of Cloth III preview

If you watched the first and second instalments of Charlie Brooker's A Touch of Cloth then you'll know just how brilliant it is, and the third instalment, A Touch Of Cloth III: Too Cloth For Comfort is just as brilliant, and just as funny, if not funnier.

Charlie Brooker launches new production company

Charlie Brooker and Annabel Jones today announced the launch of House of Tomorrow, a new production house.

Charlie Brooker to appear in Sniper Elite 3

Charlie Brooker is to appear in the computer game Sniper Elite 3 as German soldier. The writer and TV presenter was motion captured for the latest in the World War Two war game series - now he's available for everyone to shoot at.

Charlie Brooker on Jeremy Paxman and Susanna Reid

Good Morning Britain viewers who have had their fantasies thwarted might like to turn their attention to the outgoing Newsnight presenter instead.

Charlie Brooker to cameo in Sniper Elite 3 game

He may have keyboard warriors taking him down in the comments section of his columns, but Charlie Brooker now has a new army of aggressors to face: the players of forthcoming video game Sniper Elite 3.

The Methuselah-like panel show begins its 47th series, with Jennifer Saunders in the host's seat for the first time. How she's never landed the gig before when the likes of Fern Britton and Jerry Springer have is a mystery. Elsewhere, Pointless chap Richard Osman will put his panel show nous (he's had a hand in creating 8 Out Of 10 Cats and Charlie Brooker vehicle You Have Been Watching) to good use as a guest panellist. It's years past its real peak, but still diverting enough.

Charlie Brooker becomes a father for the 2nd time

Television presenter Konnie Huq and her broadcaster husband Charlie Brooker have welcomed their second child into the world.