Charlie Brooker

Video: Charlie Brooker interview

The journalist, screenwriter and broadcaster talks to Grace Dent about his arrogant attitude on his first day on The 11 O'Clock Show, revealing that when he joined the Channel 4 satirical programme he felt like he was 'drowning' alongside the other comic talent. He also discusses his idea for a reality show called Daily Mail Island.

Brooker & Maier build the perfect TV detective

Charlie Brooker and Daniel Maier, the writers of A Touch of Cloth, dissect the anatomy of Jack Cloth, their new satirical cop show star.

Every cop cliché drama you've ever seen reports for duty in this forensically observed and daftly funny send-up by Charlie Brooker. Some of the puns are arrestable offences but terrific performances from crime-cracking duo Suranne Jones and John Hannah, who have both served time in 'proper' cop shows, keep the plot on track.

He may not be to everyone's taste but there's no doubting that Jonathan Ross can still attract the big names. Tonight, the ebullient chat show host is joined by tough-guy actor Ray Winstone, who discusses his new film The Sweeney. F1 driver Jenson Button and actress Suranne Jones - who stars in Charlie Brooker's spoof A Touch of Cloth, which starts on Sunday - are also in the studio. The music comes from R'n'B girl group Stooshe.

Charlie Brooker has said that the original intention of this two-part detective spoof was as a parody of Inspector Morse. What we have now is a comedy with the witty worldplay of The Naked Gun in which the lead cop is almost as screwed up as the criminal he's chasing. Clever casting ensures that the two leads, John Hannah and Suranne Jones, have TV detective series history (in Rebus and Scott & Bailey respectively) and here they play washed-up, alcoholic DCI Jack Cloth and DC Anne Oldman, who has a secret to hide and whose every instinct is inevitably proved to be wrong; there's a nice performance too from Julian Rhind-Tutt as police chief Tom Boss. With every possible joke wrung out of a storyline involving a sword-wielding serial killer there's a sense of overkill, but A Touch of Cloth is still often very funny.

Kayvan Novak, Sally Phillips, Morgana Robinson and Blake Harrison take turns to spoof a series of generic dramatic set-ups (the crime scene, the politician's mea culpa, the workplace) in this promising new sketch show scripted by a team including Charlie Brooker and Ben Caudell. A quality supporting cast of 'serious' actors, including Simon Callow, Ewen Bremner and Bill Paterson, provide the essential foundation of gravitas - it's worth a look just to see a poker-faced Denis Lawson ask, 'What kind of trousers does a cunt wear?' - while someone has also taken the smart decision not to risk trying the audience's patience with catchphrases or recurring characters. The result is fresh, funny and, impressively, even springs the occasional surprise. Better still, there's more tomorrow.

New sketch show enlivened no end by the prodigious talent of performers like Simon Callow and Kevin Eldon cranking some laughs out of the hit-and-miss material. It doesn't help that every routine is punctuated by the sort of hideous synthesiser riff a junior manager of Dixons would demonstrate on a Casio keyboard circa 1988. Worth it, though, for Charlie Brooker's input and the professionalism of those on show.

Charlie Brooker is back and this time he's sent up your favourite detective series in two-part spoof A Touch of Cloth, which we here at Digital Spy already consider to be one of the funniest shows of the year.

John Hannah and Suranne Jones play DCIs Jack Cloth and Anne Oldman respectively, two coppers trying to connect the dots as series of murders take place in their alien world of c**k jokes, cringeworthy puns and incestuous corpse romancing. It's silly, silly stuff - maybe too silly for some - but the gags per-min rate is far above anything else on television right now. We promise you, something in A Touch of Cloth is bound to make you smile, even if you hate yourself for doing so.

Considerably less impressive [than Toast Of London] is C4 Comedy Presents: Them From That Thing an almost entirely mirthless sketch show that wastes 
a core cast of able comic performers such as Sally Phillips and Fonejacker's Kayvan Novak on weak, strained material (some of which was apparently written by the usually reliable Charlie Brooker).

Its gimmick, such as it is, is casting straight actors such as Bill Paterson and Sean Pertwee in comic roles, but that just comes across as a desperate attempt to give it some identity. This is committee-formed comedy, lacking in 
singular vision.

John Hannah interview

John Hannah adds a touch of cliché to Charlie Brooker's new show.