Gillian Reynolds

A cute kitten being pecked to death by a robin on a Christmas card would have been funnier than this jumble of a play by Andy Lynch (again), here assisted by Johnny Vegas. Vegas also played Les Dawson. The plot concerned Dawson being a surprise appointment to host the BBC's top Saturday evening attraction of yesteryear, Blankety Blank. The character action was between Dawson and a disapproving BBC executive, played by Nicholas Parsons. It sounded like a bundle of unwashed insecurities being laundered in public as well as a waste of the serious talents of Nicholas Parsons, the best straight man in the business.

So it was back to the kitchen for No Angel by Andy Lynch, on Radio 2's Comedy Showcase. Martine McCutcheon played a TV producer, trying to get ahead while coping with her ghastly star (Clive Anderson). She keeps meeting a disreputable man with a heavy Liverpool accent (Ricky Tomlinson). Is he stalking her? Could he be her father? No, he was her guardian angel. She took some convincing. I didn't. The title rather gave it away. But the real surprise here was how awful Clive Anderson was in a straight role. Perhaps he didn't want to pretend to be vain, bossy, unreasonable and demanding which was why he made his lines sound like plasterboard. McCutcheon and Tomlinson certainly did better with theirs.

A new comedy by Andy Lynch with an astonishingly starry cast: Clive Anderson, Ricky Tomlinson, Martine McCutcheon, Andy Parsons and Emily Head (from TV's The Inbetweeners). And now the plot. Who is this hairy old Scouser who accosts a career-minded female producer in the street? Is he just a stalker? It's directed by Dirk Maggs, the master of feelgood surround-sound.

Does that title ring a bell? Can you hear Les Dawson saying it as he presented the humble prizes on Blankety Blank? This play, starring Johnny Vegas, co-written by him with Andrew Lynch, imagines how the BBC might have engaged the great Les (played by Vegas) back in the 1980s, to host the prime-time show. Nicholas Parsons plays Farson, embodiment of traditional forces at the BBC, opponent of all the comic subversion Les stood for, his nemesis. It's fiction. How I wish the late Mike Craig, comedy producer, were still around to discuss it on Front Row.

More adventures of the show business legend (and trout tickler) Count Arthur Strong. If you haven't met him before you'll be unaware of his way of looking at the world and tendency to forget significant things. Those who love his idiosyncracies include Radio 2's Mark Radcliffe and Stuart Maconie and critic Miranda Sawyer. Personally, I can't abide the blundering, blustering, malapropic Mancunian Count, creation of Steve Delaney. Nor, I can exclusively reveal, can Jim Naughtie (although what the Count thinks of Jim may be another matter).

Sheila Hancock reads out her diary to host comedian Rufus Hound and a vocal Radio Theatre audience. She's been keeping diaries since she was very young but, because a water main burst in her street, most of them were lost in the resulting flood. She shares the one that's still left, from 1947 when she was a scholarship girl at a grammar school which, she said, changed her life. One way was by a trip to France organised for her by her teachers. She was 14, on her own in a foreign country for the first time. Abroad was a different place then, as we hear.

Lynne Truss's new comedy is about Welsh people, golf, rain, mysterious sudden death and yet more rain. Things are strange in this corner of Cymru. Like the truth about Auntie Susan no one got round to asking, even though Uncle Gwyn had thought of marrying her. (You'll soon twig it.) Then there's The Rock, a geological form in the shape of a golf ball, towering, massive, spherical, complete with dimples, its own clouds and a curse. When keen cartographer Jaci comes from distant Cardiff to inspect it the locals are apprehensive. No wonder.

Richard Wilson stars in John Langdon's comedy, playing Frank who used to be a Latin teacher and once was married but has now become a mini-cab driver. Even worse, he's working for his ex-wife Barbara, who's the cab controller, and her husband who owns the firm. No wonder Frank is looking for another way to earn a living. There are two reasons to think this must be a good script. First, Wilson doesn't do rubbish. Second, John Langdon is an accomplished writer who worked for Punch and was on the team of The News Quiz when it was still worth listening to.

Return of Alistair Beaton and Tom Mitchelson's satire on the modern-day world of newspapers. It's not "hold the front page" any more, but rather "how many hits did that make on the website?" Yet everyone needs news and the electronic media still need print to feed from. So here's Oliver (Alex Jennings) sitting in the editor's chair, old school ace reporter Maddox (John Sessions) still turning up the splash stories but needing support from web whizz Freddy (Stephen Wight) who's really a posh lad (and rich with it) but talks street lingo for extra cred.

Lucy Montgomery is funny. She creates characters you'll recognise, in situations that edge gradually into the surreal. Persist through the first sketch if you find it a bit shouty. Her posh babysitters, Maisie and Daisy, babbling on in their own language about vampires and the Jonas Brothers, are marvellous. The pace is fast, so if you don't like the jilted bride there'll be another person along directly. Her final character, a Broadway entertainer with a gift for picking the wrong husband, is a shining gem of observational malice.