David McGillivray

A look at David McGillivray's autobiography

If you are in it, be afraid... be very afraid.

Radio Times review

While Vicious nabbed all the publicity (much of it deploring its dated script and braying studio audience) another series about a mature gay male couple was pootling along nicely.

In and Out of the Kitchen begins its fourth radio series after a brief BBC Four outing earlier this year. Here, stereotyped bitchiness is replaced by beautifully delivered sarcasm as world-weary cookery writer Damien (Miles Jupp) is gently chided by his banker partner Anthony (the show's writer Justin Edwards). Dare one say that this is intended for a more discerning audience?

In the first episode Damien agonises over whether to accept an offer to present a downmarket TV show about street food. Comedy no longer produces people capable of sophisticated repartee? Far from it.

Radio Times review

"I don't think people are gonna get what's going on here", admits Essex boy Terry Alderton in the first episode of his... er... unusual comedy series. Even those familiar with the experiments in this late-night slot may be taken aback.

The show is a soundscape of voices (all provided by Alderton), effects and music with little or no concession to comic custom. This is a real surprise given Alderton's more conventional stand-up career. "Episode two's gotta be better than episode one", he appeases us.

Let's see. At the moment I'm recovering from the shock of the new.

Radio Times review

This Australian comic, based in London for more than 20 years, has had Edinburgh success with her idiosyncratic shows in which she tells stories about her action-packed life. Here are adaptations of four of them, starting with her production from last year in which she revealed that she's an adopted child who, from the age of 18, went in search of her birth mother.

It's a real adventure involving a private eye and then meticulous research through social media that led to clues in three countries. Frances-White's funny yet moving yarn will make you want to tune in to the next tale.

Radio Times review

Comedy writer Jon Canter's last radio hit was the engagingly barmy Believe It!, which invented a fantasy life for Richard Wilson of all people. In Canter's new series Dr Johnson's biographer Boswell (Miles Jupp) interviews historical figures (Sigmund Freud last week, Maria Callas today, Harold Pinter coming up).

It's reminiscent of the Sky Arts 1 series Psychobitches in which Rebecca Front did the same sort of thing. I preferred it because its sketch format didn't outstay its welcome. Here the material is stretched thinly over half an hour. But radio editor Jane Anderson thinks it's "a work of genius". You decide.

Radio Times review

As a useful adjunct to BBC One's The Big Painting Challenge, try Hannah Gadsby's new series in which the Tasmanian comedian/art historian analyses four works of art. She also sketches in her own life as a gay art student, while a sardonic talking robot, who sounds to me like comedy producer John Lloyd, plays Richard Osman to Gadsby's Alexander Armstrong.

Amateur artists should draw inspiration from the fact that all four masterpieces were dissed by contemporary critics. The pieces scrutinised are Manet's Olympia (1865); Van Eyck's Arnolfini Portrait (1434); Michelangelo's David (1504); and Picasso's Les demoiselles d'Avignon (1907). The robot impersonates Sister Wendy, which is much appreciated. As with Paul Sinha's similar comic reinterpretations of history, newcomer Gadsby elicits fascinating facts (Manet's nude was an artist in her own right).

Radio Times review

Paul Sinha is a bright lad who's becoming well-known for his quiz show appearances. His new Radio 4 series, in which he offers his take on historical events, seems calculated to appeal to Radio Times readers: Sinha deplores people who are uninterested in anything that happened before they were born.

The first show combines two of Sinha's specialist subjects, football and great navigators, and explains why Brazilians and Argentineans can kick a ball with more skill than Brits. It's not uproariously funny. It needs a shot of the off-the-wall observation that distinguishes QI, a television programme on which, for some unaccountable reason, Sinha has never appeared.

But it's undeniably interesting, full of the kind of information that might come in handy for the next pub quiz.

Radio Times review

Impressionist Lewis Macleod, the latest recruit to Dead Ringers, now gets his own show. Duncan Wisbey and Julian Dutton have contrived some fairly wacky situations to exploit their mate's best voices.

Morgan Freeman plays Fletcher in Porridge; Gregg Wallace sings a filthy love song to Mary Berry (Kate O'Sullivan); and a running gag has Benedict Cumberbatch turning up inopportunely to spout purple prose in the manner of Sherlock Holmes.

The show claims that Macleod has been hired to impersonate movie stars who refuse to re-record their inaudible lines. We want more details.

Radio Times review

Radio regular Danny Robins's new sitcom, about a British comic who has married a Swede and is trying to come to terms with Swedish culture, is heavily autobiographical. Robins, who wrote Rudy's Rare Records, really did marry a Swede and her father really is the mayor of a town with a (to non-Swedes) unpronounceable name.

In episode one somebody says, "Do Swedes have a sense of humour?" (They certainly do. Robins, above, is one of several British comics who play Swedish comedy clubs). It has to be said that a large proportion of Robins's humour derives from the British perception of Swedish gloominess. But it's affectionate.

Radio Times review

The reunion of the UK's most influential comedy troupe - yes, the Pythons, of course - has now accumulated a mountain of speculation. Did the first show really sell out in under a minute? Are the "boys", all now in their 70s, really only doing it for the money? Will they still be funny? (No, yes, er. . .) More will be revealed here.

BBC Radio 2 (17.00-19.00, 1st July) has managed the considerable coup of nabbing arguably the two most eloquent members of the team (Michael Palin and John Cleese, who so memorably trounced Malcolm Muggeridge and the Bishop of Southwark during the Life of Brian scandal in 1979) to do a live interview hours before the Python show at London's 02 arena. The interviewer is Simon Mayo, and I can't imagine anyone better.