Charlie Brooker

A comedy panel show about TV? I'm there. Even if it's It's Only TV But I Like It. This show's likely to be head and shoulders above that, devised and hosted as it is by Charlie Brooker, creator of BBC4's Screenwipe and Newswipe. If it softens Brooker's renowned cynical edge, it'll be a disappointment, but chances are this will be the funniest thing on TV all week.

TV Review: News Wipe with Charlie Brooker

There's generally three responses I have to Newswipe with Charlie Brooker. One is admiration at a piece of witty insight. Two is a belly laugh at a funny. Third, and possibly most important is a mixture of outrage and disbelief.

Spoons, a sketch show about relationships co-created by Charlie Brooker, was given the heave-ho after one series by Channel 4, despite positive clippings stretching all the way to America, where the New York Times praised its "tight thematic focus" which "captured the moments - awkward, destructive and banal - of young dating and married life".

Poor ratings were cited. Spoons scooped up around 1.7m viewers at 10pm on Friday nights, which was indeed a big drop from that slot's summer average of three million. Problem was, the fact that the slot had been bookended by Big Brother was totally ignored. With an inflated opinion of the worth of their own slot, the Channel 4 bean counters consigned Spoons to the scrapheap. And of course now that slot struggles to draw more than a million. It's almost enough to make you wish they'd made a decision by actually watching the programme.

TV Review: Newswipe with Charlie Brooker

We're three episodes into Newswipe with Charlie Brooker and, if we're waiting for it to hit stride, like Mr Brooker suggested, then I'm going to have to prepare myself. You see, Newswipe is fast becoming Another Charlie Brooker Classic!

Charlie Brooker is really becoming something of a star. Just think, once upon a time, no-one had a clue what he looked like. He was just this voice... a voice of dissent accompanied by a depressed looking cartoon blob. After years hidden away from our eyes, now we've got loads of him.

Of course, mostly, we're used to seeing (and reading) Brooker taking TV to task, poking fun and offering comment. However, now he's in a new territory, looking at the world of news. Last week was the first offering, which worked very well indeed. As a show, it has started exceedingly well and, while we wait for it to really get into its stride, we can only assume it'll be getting better.

Last week Charlie Brooker's characteristically brilliant Newswipe started, taking a pin to the over-inflated lilo of news journalism. He's the only man who can make quantitative easing funny and has the gift of seeming, even after several hugely popular series, like a normal person who has invaded a studio.

News waffle was the enemy on Charlie Brooker's Newswipe - the new show from the newspaper critic. Newswipe began on an odd note - tortuously spending five minutes explaining what it was, when anyone who'd seen it in the listings had simply thought: "Oh, Newswipe. That will be like Brooker's previous series - Screenwipe - but about current affairs, instead of telly." Also - and perhaps inevitably - Newswipe had the faint, cordite smell of The Day Today clinging to its hair. For half an hour it was a show that basically wanted to say, in the words of Chris Morris: "These are the headlines. I wish to God they weren't."

Still, Brooker's schtick - an intelligent, liberal man brought to the brink of despair simply by looking at the BBC's homepage - is as welcome dissecting the German high-school shootings as it is Holby; and having an ROFL Newsnight is something to cling to in the schedules.

Charlie Brooker gets a new show... I'm confused

Charlie Brooker is to write and present a new Channel 4 series in which he and a guest will dissect the week's television output. It will be called You Have Been Watching, and I'm praying that it's nothing like TV Heaven, Telly Hell.

On a good day, Charlie Brooker can make Brian Clough look like Kofi Annan. He's a kind of genius of spleen and when it's directed at the right target it can be deeply gratifying to watch him in action. But Newswipe with Charlie Brooker doesn't work quite as well as Screenwipe, the television-based series from which it has been spun off.

What Brooker promises is a "fun, snarky, weekly digest" to help less committed viewers keep up with "the world's most complicated soap opera" - the news. And when he concentrates on style it can be both funny and telling. To have the visual metaphors used to tart up news reports on "quantitive easing" dipped in acid until only the witless desperation of the endeavour was left was not only entertaining but salutary. There was also a striking contribution from Nick Davies, on how PR companies can effectively manipulate the news agenda. But elsewhere it occasionally strikes you as a one-man Have I Got News for You, and the contributions from people who aren't Charlie Brooker fall sadly short of the cutting precision of the man whose name is in the title.

TV Review: Newswipe with Charlie Brooker

Charlie Brooker is becoming something of a proper TV star now. He's definitely on the ascendency, not that he'd ever let on. Just look at how Newswipe became Newswipe with Charlie Brooker. You don't get your name tacked on the end unless you're making a stir.