Gillian Reynolds

Didn't he dress up as a gay man, a woman in a fur coat? That's what people say at the start of David Walliams's tribute to "a light entertainment icon". Then, intercut with soundtrack, it sounds as if he's interviewing the man himself. Emery died in 1983, having been a fixture in broadcast comedy for decades. "He was a good old-fashioned pro," says Michael Grade. "He loved going to work." So why did he fall out of fashion? Walliams explores that and why today's comedians, himself and Harry Enfield among them, still admire him.

Bright Constable Twitten (Matt Green) wants to cheer up poor Sergeant Brunswick (John Ramm) but it's hard going when they're under the command of Inspector Steine (pronounced Steen and played by Michael Fenton Stevens) who can't spot a crime when it's going on in his own nick. As it often is, as their cleaning lady Mrs Groynes (Samantha Spiro) is a criminal mastermind. Enter Harry Jupiter (Philip Jackson), top reporter and Brunswick's idol. You have to be spry to follow the twists in Lynne Truss's cartwheeling comedy.

Eddie Izzard is never off the wireless lately. Last week he was interviewed by Frank Skinner, now he's quizzing Alistair Campbell, once chief spin doctor to Tony Blair and terror of the BBC, now more of a wandering minstrel. Izzard starts off with how the Clan Campbell got its appalling reputation, what it was like for a Campbell to grow upin Keighley, what differentiates a busker from a street entertainer, being a swot, going to Cambridge, trying his hand at pornography, having a nervous breakdown. I think I've heard most of this before. Too often.

Second of four specials, great comics of yesteryear presented by stars of today. Last week it was Frankie Howerd and Clive Anderson, tonight it's Stanley Baxter and Eddie Izzard. To those who remembers Baxter's parodies of Hollywood (and royalty and showbiz), presented in TV shows so lavish they looked as good as the originals, Izzard seems an odd choice to appraise his talents. But this is about Baxter's comedy, a kind of showbiz cartooning that was all his own, and how he learned to perfect it. And he's still here to tell the tale himself.

Michael Palin, the Monty Python team member who escaped Transatlantic lures, who still retains his curiosity about the world while seldom indulging in public reflections on private torments, reads his new volume of memoirs. It's about the Eighties, when the Pythons were moving on into movies, finding their careers diverging and, for some of them, coping with ordinary family life. Here's how he began unexpected new chapters in his life. He wasn't top of the BBC's list, we learn, to front big travel series. They changed their minds. Lucky us.

Ouch. This is funny. But uncomfortable. Christopher Green's acutely observant play stars Caroline Quentin as a feisty realist, underwhelmed by her life. She's taken to bed, intends to stay there, safe, protected, withdrawn. This permanent bedrest is to protect the world from her torrents of contagious emotion. Anyone who's lived a little will recognise her feelings and her domestic situation. It's her house but Rob, her partner, is also in it. And she's in the spare room in the second best bed where, as time drags by, she notices drawbacks.

Tony Bagley's comedy is set in 1959 at the Common Cold Unit. It really existed, a unit of Nissen huts where volunteers took part, unpaid, in a 40-year experiment to determine the causes and obtain a cure for the common cold. The rules were strict. Bagley's characters get tangled up in them. Barry (Paul Reynolds) is a trade union official who's been coming there for years. When John, his roommate, is accused of breaking the rule on proximity, Barry takes on the establishment. Lillian (Alex Tregear), another outsider, admires Barry's stance. Cupid hovers.

There were more than 750 comedy shows on at the Edinburgh Fringe this year. Even if you think you've heard quite enough already on Radio 4 and read too much about them everywhere you have to admire the steely determination of Jason Manford (of Eight Out of Ten Cats) and his producer, Julia Mackenzie, in boiling the lot down to two half-hours. This is the first, featuring Kevin Bridges, Mick Ferry, Sarah Millican and Mike Wilmot, all of whom may have their own shows this time next year. You never know, they might even make you laugh.

Robert Llewellyn, of Scrapheap Challenge, interviews Dave Gorman, comedian, of Are You Dave Gorman? Is he obsessive? asks Llewellyn. Suppose so, says Gorman, but real obsessions make good shows. Is it all a bit egotistical? Gorman asks himself, then answers it, saying not really. The Daves in his adventures are alter egos. He started off as an ordinary stand-up with jokes, was inspired by Ian Dury's song Reasons to Be Cheerful to branch out into real-life jaunts. Who will Gorman interview next week? If anyone's still listening by then...

Don't miss The Pickerskill Reports (Radio 4, Friday mornings). This is comedy done without a studio audience, nothing between listener and performance but the ringing of the doorbell, the noises in the street. It is good enough to blot out both. Ian McDiarmid translates Andrew McGibbons's script into a world of its own, faintly sinister, oddly true and far too funny ever to be on TV.