Charlie Brooker

'The thought of Les Dawson coming back as a hologram fries my tiny mind,' was probably the weirdest sentence I heard on TV all weekend. It arrived courtesy of Russell Kane, standing in as a rented talking head on Les Dawson - An Audience With That Never Was (ITV).

I had to check that this wasn't one of Charlie Brooker's Black Mirror futuristic dramas because there, on the screen, was the hologrammed Dawson cracking gags as if he was still alive - he died 20 years ago at the age of 62 - while the camera kept cutting, in time-honoured Audience style, to chortling minor celebs in the present day. Debbie McGee, Lorraine Chase, you get the drift.

It was deeply odd. Dawson had been two weeks away from filming his Audience show when he died and this was a well-intentioned way of paying tribute to an old-school comedy great.

But the long-shot hologram sequences of Dawson in action felt uneasily like you were watching him cracking jokes at his own funeral. The Q&A was a belter, mind.

Charlie Brooker: Dialogue is two monologues clashing

One of the handiest screenwriting tips I've ever encountered is a quote from Russell T Davies in a book about the making of Doctor Who. "Dialogue is just two monologues clashing".

TV Review: 10 O'Clock Live

This first episode certainly seemed to suffer from stiffness and I'm not not talking about Charlie Brooker's new over-gelled, side-parted haircut.

A gaggle of familiar faces jostle for screen space as the topical news satire returns to take a pop at the week's headlines. While it's never quite matched the casual wit of Have I Got News For You or the US chutzpah of The Daily Show, there's always the chance one of the TV regulars - including Screenwipe's Charlie Brooker, Peep Show's David Mitchell and music pundit Lauren Laverne - will hit a funny bone when you're least expecting it.

The comic current affairs show returns with David Mitchell, Charlie Brooker, Lauren Laverne and Jimmy Carr sinking satirical claws into the week. Late-night political satire is a fixture of US television and if they got it right here, it could be a buzzy alternative to Question Time. So far 10 O'Clock Live has only shown flashes of that, but Mitchell is a better interviewer than you'd expect and his longer pieces, along with Brooker's Screenwipe-ish rants, mean the show is always good in parts.

A strange one, this. Without ever quite feeling the sum of its talented parts, this satirical current affairs show has made it to a third series. Last time around, certain problems still bedevilled 10 O'Clock Live. The tone remained unsure and Lauren Laverne still felt a tad underemployed. And yet it continued to be watchable - David Mitchell proved to be a reasonably penetrating interviewer and Charlie Brooker's world-weary plaints are always good value. Plus, any show that has James Delingpole up in arms is all right by us.

This time around, it's probably make or break. 10 O'Clock Live could establish itself as an irreverent but still sentient alternative to Newsnight (we'd suggest at least one lengthier and slightly more serious news piece per show), or it could drift off towards irrelevance and self-indulgence. For what it's worth, we'd like it to work and there's no reason why it can't.

Charlie Brooker: That's yer Thatcher Ding Dong

Maggie Thatcher died. Git-haired One Direction sex minnow Harry Styles hastily tweeted an RIP, prompting many of his fans to wonder aloud just who this "Thatcher" person was, much to the amusement of onlookers not quite smart enough to understand how time works.

So this is the time to point out to the furiously shouting Charlie that he himself is part of the entertainment on the box and that it therefore can't be all bad. He has a way of putting things that makes a funfair out of the apocalypse.

Charlie Brooker: live audience is weirdest creature

Now the TV audience has an offshoot: the extended online TV audience, which is quicker to judge and infinitely more vocal. The Twitter audience for every TV show consists of people actively willing themselves to be comically unimpressed.

Charlie Brooker: there are scripts for Series 3

Charlie Brooker says he has "ideas" for another run of Black Mirror if the show is recommissioned.