Emma Thompson

Sky Arts unveils biggest investment in new comedy

Emma Thompson is to play Queen Elizabeth II and Tom Jones will make his acting debut as part of a new strand of comedies and dramas to be broadcast on Sky Arts.

The formidable, funny Emma Thompson joins Ross for a chat tonight, presumably to discuss her work-in-progress Effie. Thompson, who won an Academy Award for her Sense and Sensibility screenplay, has taken up her pen again to bring to life the disastrous marriage of Victorian art critic/thinker John Ruskin and his young bride Effie Gray.

Actress and former child star Brooke Shields also makes herself comfortable on the Ross sofa, along with Mr Saturday Night himself, Paddy McGuinness. Music is provided by Florence and the Machine and Petr Spatina.

There has been a lot of advanced publicity about the "return" of Matt LeBlanc - Joey from Friends - in the new comedy Episodes (BBC2). It was either a clever postmodern joke or a foolhardy gambit that the star of the show didn't appear in the first episode of Episodes, other than a brief glimpse of him driving a car.

I'm inclined to think it was a smart move, if only because it gave Tamsin Greig and Stephen Mangan a chance to establish themselves without the distraction of LeBlanc's comeback moment. They play a married couple of English sitcom writers who are wooed to Hollywood to make a US version of their hit British show. Once there, of course, all the promises they were made evaporate as quickly as a spilt cocktail in the Californian sun.

It's not a bad premise, the opener had some promising scenes, and Greig (who would be a shoo-in for the lead part if there were ever an Emma Thompson biopic) and Mangan strike a nice balance between insecurity and irony. But if there's one thing that Hollywood excels in it is sending itself up, and there was nothing in the first episode to suggest that Episodes (co-written by Friends creator David Crane) is going to deliver a fresh or especially funny perspective on a familiar scene.

Everything remained safely within the confines of established tropes, as though the novelty of having English leads would be enough in itself to give new life to an old joke. That may change with the introduction of LeBlanc, who is said to reveal a "darker" side of his real-life character. As no one knows what LeBlanc is like in real life, what that means is darker than Joey Tribbiani, the lovable dope from Friends now immortalised on permanent cable rerun. Which is like saying darker than Noddy.

For the show to gain the rocket blast that will take it beyond a comfortable observational orbit, it will need LeBlanc to draw on a mighty payload of bitterness lurking in a pitch-black soul. That's a tough challenge for a limited comedy actor who had the extraordinary fortune to become a multimillionaire global star.

Richard Curtis's winsome romcom seems to be becoming a Christmas staple. Featuring a host of Britain's favourite actors including Hugh Grant, Emma Thompson, Alan Rickman and Bill Nighy, it delves into the personal lives of 10 very different individuals whose lives become loosely entangled in the run-up to the holiday.

It was nice to see Fry and Laurie reunited on Fry and Laurie: Reunited (Gold) even if it took a whopping 25 minutes of this 90-minute show to get them in the same room giggling over their heyday in the early 90s. But how else to make room for all the ads and biogs (for those who didn't know, Fry was a big darts fan and went to jail when he was 18) and unconscionable padding with tributes from an endless roll call of comedians including, slightly bafflingly, Daniel Ratcliffe?

But the best bit was just ahead of the big event (though it turned out quite small with a lot of recapping and Emma Thompson), each interviewed in the back of their cars on the way to the venue in a grand house, recalling their first encounter at Cambridge.

Ah, yes, said Laurie, we met at Stephen's rooms...

Yes, said Fry, it was at Hugh's...

And we had wine...

Tea and crumpets, I think...

I remember we played chess...

Hugh sang a song and played guitar...

Very funny. Or maybe you had to, um, be there.

Fry's delight

Quizmaster Stephen Fry is joined by two of his best buddies in this week's QI. It's a real luvvie fest, thanks to the presence of John Sessions, who's appeared on the show several times before, and first-timer Emma Thompson. She and Fry go way back, of course. They met at Cambridge, and were members of the famous Footlights troupe, which also included Tony Slattery and Hugh Laurie. They've appeared on screen together in such projects as Alfresco and Peter's Friends.