David Walliams

David Walliams is joined by Hugh Bonneville for a Christmas special, with the Downton actor playing a grammar-obsessed vicar, a toothsome gameshow host and a yoga guru with anger issues. To his credit, he hurls himself into this sorry business with vim, but even with sketches featuring, in one case, the combined heft of Biggins, the Chuckle Brothers and Bob Carolgees, the material just isn't up to snuff.

Walliams's sidekick tonight is Miranda Richardson, which is obviously no problem: her turn in Blackadder II remains a pinnacle of sitcom performance. However, having a different sparring partner each week emphasises the patchiness of sketch shows; plus, this week it launches with a lazy riff on avaricious estate agents. The lawyers specialising in hurt feelings compensation feels like satire waiting for reality to catch up, though.

TV review: Walliams & Friend with Miranda Richardson

I don't know how much this week's guest Miranda Richardson cost but I did wonder how available she was as she doesn't do a great deal in this episode.

This latest comedy vehicle for David Walliams comes complete with a sidecar: each week, a special guest star dives into the dressing-up box for some knockabout sketches and endless spoofs of other TV shows. Tonight's instalment features Goodness Gracious Me veteran Meera Syal, who shines as both a bossy grandma-turned-unrelenting police interrogator and a recent divorcee tentatively getting to grips with a sexbot.

Walliams and Friend preview

David Walliams & Friend has etched its place on my retina as Friday night's comedy de rigueur.

David Walliams and Alan Carr recreate nude paddle photo

David Walliams and Alan Carr strip naked to recreate Katy Perry and Orlando Bloom's nude paddle board photo.

Walliams & Friend review

With a skit called Carry On Up the Sexual Harassment Tribunal, this was a very, very silly sketch show. But the weirder things got, the funnier it all was.

Sheridan Smith is this week's guest on the defiantly old-fashioned sketch show, joining in with routines about Carry On films and knackered married couples that aren't sure if they're satirising cliche or indulging in it. The best skits are those in which Walliams and his writers cater more sensitively for what Smith can do: her solo turns as a cruise-ship singer frazzled by failure, and as a wife absurdly deluded about her husband's attractiveness, give the show more heart and heft.

TV Review: David Walliams & Friend

It would be easy to mock the easy game show spoofs and the repetitive one-note Middle Class Jeremy Kyle gag but there is actually a lot to like here.

Walliams & Friend review

Walliams & Friend was a reminder of how good Harry Enfield's Nineties sketch shows were.