David Mitchell (I)

A gaggle of familiar faces jostle for screen space as the topical news satire returns to take a pop at the week's headlines. While it's never quite matched the casual wit of Have I Got News For You or the US chutzpah of The Daily Show, there's always the chance one of the TV regulars - including Screenwipe's Charlie Brooker, Peep Show's David Mitchell and music pundit Lauren Laverne - will hit a funny bone when you're least expecting it.

The comic current affairs show returns with David Mitchell, Charlie Brooker, Lauren Laverne and Jimmy Carr sinking satirical claws into the week. Late-night political satire is a fixture of US television and if they got it right here, it could be a buzzy alternative to Question Time. So far 10 O'Clock Live has only shown flashes of that, but Mitchell is a better interviewer than you'd expect and his longer pieces, along with Brooker's Screenwipe-ish rants, mean the show is always good in parts.

A strange one, this. Without ever quite feeling the sum of its talented parts, this satirical current affairs show has made it to a third series. Last time around, certain problems still bedevilled 10 O'Clock Live. The tone remained unsure and Lauren Laverne still felt a tad underemployed. And yet it continued to be watchable - David Mitchell proved to be a reasonably penetrating interviewer and Charlie Brooker's world-weary plaints are always good value. Plus, any show that has James Delingpole up in arms is all right by us.

This time around, it's probably make or break. 10 O'Clock Live could establish itself as an irreverent but still sentient alternative to Newsnight (we'd suggest at least one lengthier and slightly more serious news piece per show), or it could drift off towards irrelevance and self-indulgence. For what it's worth, we'd like it to work and there's no reason why it can't.

David Mitchell interview

A short Q&A with 10 O'Clock Live star David Mitchell about his TV watching habits.

Chuckle muscles at the ready, I prepared to be simultaneously tickled and enlightened by David Mitchell's History of British Comedy.

Sadly, however, it turned out to be an all-too-familiar trawl through the early days of music hall, variety and radio, with precious little of the Mitchell magic we know and love from his prolific radio and TV output.

A catch-all documentary series such as this is only really as good as its clips and contributors, so it was disappointing to find Mitchell, or his producer, rounding up the usual suspects - Michael Grade, Barry Cryer, Ken Dodd and token academic CP Lee, all of whose reflections on comedy have been documented to death over the years.

The country must be crawling with people with a different take on early British comedy and its connection to the comedy of today, as well as people in their 70s, 80s and 90s who saw the likes of Max Miller, Sid Field, Robb Wilton and Jimmy James in their heydays. Where were they?

By far the most vivid and original recollections of early comedy came from 91-year-old Denis Norden, a living encyclopedia of British comedy and variety who merits a documentary series to himself.

David Mitchell: comparisons between Miliband & Wallace

The Labour leader's claim to resemble an unprepossessing Plasticine model seems an odd way to curry favour.

"Come on fate! This can't be right!" pleads Mark as Peep Show's merciless writers find new ways to humiliate him - this time by making Super Hans his boss. Mind you, it's never hard to make Mark (David Mitchell) feel angry and defeated. Dobby manages it just by giving him a couscous salad to take to work - or "My Tupperware box full of tasteless misery sand", as Mark prefers to think of it.

The couple's wildly different priorities are illustrated by the fact that Dobby (Isy Suttie) wants the pair of them to go inter-railing for a few months, while Mark would rather be taking evening classes for an MBA. It's another sharply written, horribly funny episode.