Chevy Chase

I did personally feel that this first show had an incredibly impressive line-up what with Daniel Radcliffe, Chevy Chase and Olivia Coleman. All three seemed pretty game for being part of The Kumars experience and were all up for hawking the products that Ashwin was trying to get rid of from the store downstairs. Coleman especially came across as a fantastic sport and really tried her best to make the show as funny as possible.

My main issue with the format itself is the way the talk show segments are structured. Whilst the sitcom element of the show is enjoyable, especially the meetings in the discount store, I don't feel that writers know exactly what they want from the interview portions. The questions often seem a bit muddled and the guests are often asked to recall moments from any part of their careers.

In addition, the programme just feels a little baggy, due to the fact that Sky have given it full hour. I felt that The Kumars was a perfect thirty minute comedy show but the fifteen minute extension makes it feel incredibly slow at times. Though I still enjoy Bhaskar and Syal's interplay with the guests, I'm not so sure about Harvey Virdi's addition to the cast, especially seeing as most of her jokes have something to do with her hilarious name.

I do feel that there is still a place for shows such as The Kumars but this latest incarnation of the comedy chat show needs to be better written and have at least ten minutes cut off its running time.

The Kumars are no longer at number 42. Indeed, they are not even at the BBC anymore. After an eight-year absence, their chat show has been revived by Sky1, relocated to a room behind a minimart and provided with Daniel Radcliffe, Chevy Chase and Olivia Colman as inaugural guests.

The trouble is, I still don't get it. Obviously, it's subverting television conventions. True, nobody else seems to have a problem with the absurdity of the set-up. But to me and my far-too-literal mind, it doesn't make any sense. How come the Kumars have a chat show in their home?

Despite being incomprehensible to me, I find the show entertaining enough, especially if the guests play along with their hosts and don't try to compete with them. Chase looked lost, Colman couldn't contain her amusement and Radcliffe was charm personified, and effortlessly witty with it.

After eight years away from our screens, the British Indian family returns to treat the famous faces of today to some amiable nose-tweaking. Despite the action leaving the cosy confines of No. 42 (and the BBC) in favour of the box-strewn surroundings of the flat behind Ashwin's shop in glitzy Hounslow (and Sky1), the appeal of smushing on to the couch with Sanjeev, Ashwin and Ummi et al hasn't dimmed, with tonight's opener playing host to Daniel Radcliffe, Chevy Chase and Bafta-bagging Olivia Colman.

Back after a seven-year absence, the Kumars return with some top-of-the-range acting talent dropping in on their downsized Hounslow home for a dysfunctional family grilling.

With Olivia Colman holding her own against an onslaught of inappropriate questions from Sanjeev (Sanjeev Bhaskar), Daniel Radcliffe getting his cheeks tweaked by Ummi (Meera Syal) and US comedian Chevy Chase quivering under the gaze of new landlady Hawney (Harvey Virdi) we're all set for the chuckles to pick up right where they left off.

Well, apart from the fact they're now on Sky, not the Beeb, so let's hope they haven't left too many of their old fans at home alone.

Radio Times review

Remember the Kumars? You should, because their BBC show The Kumars at No 42 (which ran from 2001 to 2006) was one of a kind, steering a path between Asian sitcom and cheeky chat show that occasionally teetered on the edge of shambles, but mostly paid rich dividends as celebrities squirmed in Sanjeev Bhaskar's hot seat and the ad libs zinged.

Since we last saw them, our fictional family have fallen on hard times, with Sanjeev, Dad (Vincent Ebrahim) and Ummi (Meera Syal) now living above Dad's gift shop in Hounslow. That hasn't affected the quality of their celebrity visitors, however, as Daniel Radcliffe, Olivia Colman and Chevy Chase pay a call.

The Kumars: TV review

Although there were awkward moments (Chevy Chase seemed bemused), the format does allow Sanjeev to ask some of the better chat-show questions.

Two things swiftly became apparent from Frost on Satire (Thursday, BBC Four). One is that people tend to lose their appetite for causing offence in middle age, and the other is that age is the cruellest satirist of all. The years have done things to the American comedian Chevy Chase's face that might even have given Gillray pause for thought. Frost too has turned from the chirpy, sneering, brilliantly deadpan comic of his youth into a rheumy, clubbable figure oozing emollience in all directions.

In a rather too relaxed, chucklingly familiar sort of way, he was trying to find out what, if any, power satire held. Not much was the gist of it, with affronts to vanity being the most palpable hits. John Lloyd, producer of Spitting Image, recalled Leon Brittan's wife once coming up to him in a state of high indignation and saying, 'Leon's only got three warts on his face and you've given him five.'

Ian Hislop puts it well when he says satire's job is to ridicule "vice, folly and humbug". He also argues that it works best when politicians are particularly divisive, hence Spitting Image's success at the height of the Thatcher years and Tina Fey's Sarah Palin in the 2008 American election campaign. It's one of the many good points made in a documentary that makes excellent use of David Frost's cachet on both sides of the Atlantic. So sit through the umpteenth showing of Bernard Levin being punched on TW3 in order to also see some insightful interviews with those who have impersonated our leaders, namely Rory Bremner (Tony Blair), Chevy Chase (Gerald Ford) and Will Ferrell (George W Bush), who all consider the extent to which impressions tarnish the reputations of people in high office.