Clive Anderson

This new comedy quiz show is based on the premise that some news stories are so preposterous that they might as well have been made up. A group of comedians and celebrities are locked away for four days in a media-free "bubble", without access to phones, TV, newspapers or the internet. Oddly enough, there was no shortage of volunteers. When they emerge, the host David Mitchell confronts them with reports, headlines and images, some real and some invented. They have to distinguish one from the other. Frank Skinner and Victoria Coren are the contestants tonight, while future guests include Marcus Brigstocke, Clive Anderson, Sue Perkins and Germaine Greer. Already a big success in Israel and Poland, the quiz looks likely be a lot of fun.

A painfully revealing episode of Radio 4's The Reunion in 2005 shed a bright light on some of the darker recesses of one of television's best-loved topical comedy shows. In this look back, producer and driving force John Lloyd talks again of the backbreaking effort that went into Not the Nine O'Clock News, first shown 30 years ago: "My memory was that it was a nightmare of overwork. I mean, everything was stressful. We used to be green with exhaustion." Not Again looks at a show that launched some great British comic performers, and also Richard Curtis, Clive Anderson and Andy Hamilton, who contributed to the scripts.

High intellect and pop culture combine in Clive Anderson's wry appraisal of Christmas's televisual quirks and traditions. He considers the features of a "Christmas special", reviews the history of the season's Number Ones and contrasts the turkey-cooking advice of our most telegenic chefs. He also exposes the somewhat obvious fact that most of our Christmas programmes are in fact produced in the summer. It would all seem a little smug, were it not for Anderson's evident affection for his subject.

Beforehand there's more reason to feel fearful for the future of BBC comedy, as Clive Anderson puts a Christmassy twist on his Funny Side Of format - which tends to animate quite ordinary clips with clunky commentary and lacklustre talking heads.

Second of four specials, great comics of yesteryear presented by stars of today. Last week it was Frankie Howerd and Clive Anderson, tonight it's Stanley Baxter and Eddie Izzard. To those who remembers Baxter's parodies of Hollywood (and royalty and showbiz), presented in TV shows so lavish they looked as good as the originals, Izzard seems an odd choice to appraise his talents. But this is about Baxter's comedy, a kind of showbiz cartooning that was all his own, and how he learned to perfect it. And he's still here to tell the tale himself.

Somebody save Clive Anderson. He presided over the grim, toothless inanity of The Funny Side of TV Experts with a wilting desperation. This was the last chance saloon of clip shows; we had seen the clips before on every other clip show and all Anderson had to do was kill each familiar retread with a terrible line. We went from the cook Marguerite Patten to Trinny and Susannah with cursory cheap jokes and a cavalcade of TV experts talking about other TV experts. Still, fleeting glimpses of Patrick Moore, Magnus Pyke and the Baby Jane-ified features of Fanny Cradock averted a sudden slitting of the wrists.

The only possible reason to watch this series would be to see the clips, since the talking heads say nothing of any interest and the linking commentary from Clive Anderson is laboured and clumsy. But not even the clips are funny tonight, unlike those on earlier programmes about politicians and animals. How many times can anyone watch a person falling over on live TV or see presenters dying on air before it becomes repetitive? It also relies heavily for its material on programmes hosted by Noel Edmonds or series such as The Word and The Big Breakfast, which are the kind of programmes that give populism a bad name. Still, it looks set to liven up next week, with Brian Sewell being rude about television experts.

Look, it's a slow week on the TV front, okay? If it weren't, there'd be no need to focus on this torpid clip show which intersperses sporadically amusing clips with dull links from a studio-bound Clive Anderson, and occasional talking heads, all adding up to a really poor imitation of ITV's old It Shouldn't Happen To...

I have not been closely following Clive Anderson's career, but has it come to this: The Funny Side of Animals? This clips show did not even show new footage, but clips of wildlife documentaries in which animals behaved as animals do. Anderson tried to keep up the banter but his eyes were screaming.

Animals are anarchists, and here is a wealth of tremendous footage showing them doing all manner of things that they shouldn't. Ostriches, squirrels, badgers, ferrets, pigs and snakes attack presenters as if they hadn't eaten for years. Expletives are bleeped, blood flows and cameramen fall about laughing. Po-faced commentators try to do pieces to camera while cows hump joyfully in the background. The programme doesn't amount to much and Clive Anderson's banter is painfully laboured ("John Noakes famously ended up with smelly brown muck all over his shoes. Some say he was nervous and badly trained, but I'm pretty sure it was the elephant.") But you can't beat an animal behaving badly.