Chris O'Dowd

Moone Boy preview

Whilst Chris O'Dowd may be the big star, David Rawle steals most scenes with his wit and charm.

Cuban Fury - review

Nimble-footed stars such as Nick Frost, Chris O'Dowd and Olivia Colman step lively in a comedy that doesn't quite fill the floor.

A bit like seeing Stan without Ollie or Eric minus Ernie, Nick Frost has ditched Simon Pegg to go it alone in a generally enjoyable if forgettable British romantic comedy.

Fans of Strictly should find plenty to enjoy here, even if the story is far from memorable.

Bullied by local yobs into hanging up his dancing shoes as a child, the now adult Bruce (Frost) it tempted to return to the ballroom after learning his foxy new boss is a huge salsa fan.

You don't need a degree in rom-coms to know the whole thing is going to end in a dazzling dance contest but, for an hour and a half, Frost and co-stars Rashida Jones and Chris O'Dowd provide amiable enough company.

Radio Times review

TV action hero Kiefer Sutherland, in London filming a new series of his frenetic drama series 24, gets comfy on the Ross sofa tonight. He probably needs the rest - recent tabloid photos showed him on location running around a block of flats in the capital. After a four-year break the series returns to Sky1 later this year, with Bauer on the run from the CIA.

Also on the show is actress Emily Mortimer, talking about the faintly autobiographical sitcom she's made for Sky Living with best pal Dolly Wells, Doll & Em. And twinkly sex symbol Chris O'Dowd will tell Ross all about his role as a salsa dancer in the Nick Frost comedy film Cuban Fury.

In an inspired piece of scheduling, Channel 4 bins the Come Dine With Me repeats and dedicates the whole of Christmas Eve to Graham Linehan's honkingly funny sitcom. Set in a terrifyingly realistic man cave in the basement of a dysfunctional London company it is, according to those who know their ethernet cables from their elbows, almost a documentary.

Surrounded by empty boxes, unopened manuals, stickers and plastic desk toys, Moss (Richard Ayoade) and Roy (Chris O'Dowd, before he was Bridesmaids famous) skive, snigger, talk about girls and tell anyone with an ailing computer to turn it off and on again. Noel Fielding lives in the cupboard. Their female boss knows nothing of these annoying computer thingies and is preoccupied with her car crash love life.

In honour of this festive extravaganza, fans have voted for their favourite episode and Linehan has nominated his. There is also a repeat of the final one-off show from earlier this year and a documentary featuring interviews with cast and A-list fans.

Of course, every night is IT Crowd night somewhere on the Channel 4 network. Like Father Ted, it's become one of those endlessly repeated classics that feels dangerous to even dip into for fear of finding yourself still transfixed a couple of hours later.

So what is Graham Linehan's secret? No real clues from The IT Crowd Manual', the doc which, at 10pm, forms the centrepiece of this celebration. What he's done seems simple: in both Father Ted and The IT Crowd, the classic sitcom formula (a hermetically-sealed world, characters who never learn lessons) is equipped it with self-awareness and real warmth. Oh, and the perfomances are magnificent - Richard Ayoade, Chris O'Dowd, Katherine Parkinson and Matt Berry are all charmingly present and correct and all seem rightly proud to have been involved in such an adored show.

If you tune in an hour before the doc, you'll get another chance to catch the hour-long special that closed the series earlier this year; from 11.05pm, we'll be finding out which episodes the show's fans and creator hold dearest. A Christmas Eve treat.

Exclusive: Chris O'Dowd stars in deleted scene

Fresh from the final episode of The IT Crowd last week, you may well be wondering where you can get your fill of Chris O'Dowd. Well fear not, because his great HBO and BBC show Family Tree is out on DVD now!

Radio Times review

The synthy title music buzzes us in for a last, joyous visit to the basement of Reynholm Industries. Since the last series in 2010, Chris O'Dowd has gone A-list in Hollywood and Richard Ayoade's film-directing debut (Submarine) won him a Bafta nomination. But for some of us they'll always be Roy and Moss, socially inept IT engineers saddled with a vague, desperate manager (Katherine Parkinson) whose talent for making things spiral into wrongness rivals their own.

For this extended, goodbye special, it's business as usual. Playboy company boss Douglas (Matt Berry) is thinking of appearing on The Secret Millionaire, Roy is struggling to keep a new girlfriend ("She said that emotionally I'm on the artistic spectrum..."), and he and Jen are caught on a viral video that upsets the internet. "We p****d off the internet, Jen!" wails Roy. The internet is coming to get us!"