Dave Allen (II)

My abiding memory of Irish comedian Dave Allen, apart from his pointedly perceptive and very funny 1970s-80s TV show, was seeing him perform his live stand-up (or in his case sit-down stand-up) in the early 1990s. During the course of two hours, in his usual relaxed demeanour, he talked about sex, religion, the Irish, and his teenage son - and it was hilarious - so much so that my sides literally did hurt by the end. So it's fitting that Radio 2's comedy season includes this celebration of the much missed Allen, who died in 2005. Fellow Dubliner and stand-up Ed Byrne is the guide to the career of a man whose taboo-breaking observations about death and particularly the Catholic Church established him as an alternative comedian before the term had even been coined.

Stewart Lee is a raconteur who might remind you of Dave Allen; he's clever, discursive and very funny. Though best known for co-writing Jerry Springer: The Opera, which made him the focus of a national hate campaign, Lee is a gifted stand-up with a laconic style. In the first instalment of a new series, his subject is books in general and so-called "celebrity hardbacks" in particular, which allows Lee, who looks a bit like a very young, very tired Morrissey, to give Jeremy Clarkson and Chris Moyles both barrels. I loved his dismissal of the latter's second autobiographical volume, The Difficult Second Book, as a title that showed "a degree of irony and self-awareness largely absent from the text". The sketches that smatter the show don't work very well (they never did for Dave Allen, either), but just go with the flow, because everything else works a treat.

I'm afraid The Omid Djalili Show was not as good as the torrent of advance publicity suggested. In the past, Djalili has proved himself a fine comedian, neatly combining his Iranian background with his current status as a middle-class Englishman to explore the two cultures - and, more importantly, to be funny. Saturday's show, by contrast, was just a great big mess.

Going for a Dave Allen mix of sketches and gags, it ended up misfiring on both counts. The sketches were generally overlong, and often uninspired to start with. The stand-up stuff had its moments - but never seemed sure whether it wanted to play with stereotypes or simply rely on them. Djalili still came across as an interesting and likeable man, and as a good actor. Nonetheless, some serious script-editing is badly needed if the series is going to do him anything like justice.