Gillian Reynolds

Great diabolic plots of creeping mystery! Here come master detective Sexton Blake (Simon Jones) and his plucky sidekick Tinker (Wayne Forester) plus an assortment of posh birds, cross archbishops and fiendish profs to solve any murder going, thwart all evil ploys. For anyone who remembers the real thing in book, magazine or comic form, this aural slapstick version (directed by dynamic Dirk Maggs) will lack proper gravitas. It is, however, huge fun in a Goon-show-ish sort of way. Quick, lads, to the locomotive. The chase is on!

Desmond Olivier Dingle, co-founder and half the entire company of the famed National Theatre of Brent, proudly opens this new season with a portrait of Bob Dylan, supported by Raymond Box (John Ramm) whose script-mangling is quite peerless. Travel with them to the shivering plains of America's Midwest to observe Bob (played by Desmond) knocking on his sweetheart's door in Hibbin, Minnesota. "We'll be happy but dull for the rest of our days," she says. But Bob listens to a Woody Guthrie record. And everything changes.

This is a comedy, about computers and their systems for finding out anything and being often slightly wrong. It's also about commercial broadcasting, in that it's sponsored by Chianto, a beverage that grows more noxious with every announcement, and ghastly contests between rock bands. But it's the first late-night comedy in ages that has made me laugh, about computers and why I'm scared of them, about vile TV shows and meaningless commercials. Written by Nick Doody and Matt Kirshen, performed with zest by a sparkling cast. Bound to become a cult.

Welcome return for John Finnemore's situation comedy about a struggling small charter airline. It's blessed with a classy cast, Roger Allam, Benedict Cumberbatch, Stephanie Cole as Carolyn, the boss, and Finnemore himself as her perennially perky son Arthur. And today Alison Steadman arrives as Carolyn's sister. They haven't spoken for years. Arthur hasn't bothered to think about that as he's planned a cheery birthday trip for them all. To Helsinki. He's booked it on his Mum's credit card. And she thought it was proper business.

Ronnie Hazelbeach is a nice sort, but pretty dodgy. The exposition at the start of this new series gets you into the picture quite smartly. He (played by Jamie Foreman) shares a house with nice but really gullible Nick (Paul Bazely). Enter a third man, James (Neil Stuke), who's not nice at all and has come from the arms of Nick's true love. She's thrown him out and he's got nowhere to go. Will they let him move into their house of menopause? David and Caroline Stafford's comedy is full of such sundry quips and insights into the male mind.

Yes, It's the Ashes (Radio 5 Live, 11.00am) is a bold move for this network, a new, live, topical comedy show. Host Andy Zaltzman strides to the wicket with guest Frank Skinner for banter about Ashes series old and new.

New comedy series from Shappi Khorsandi, whose lilting voice and ingenue manner have brought lots of bookings on chat and panel shows, whose Anglo-Iranian background comes in handy for longer interviews (on a recent Front Row, for instance). Here she will explore four themes, talking to people whose views compare, compliment, maybe contradict her experience of being from a non-British family. Today it's racism. Khorsandi's guests are Meera Syal, writer, actress, comedian (whose early big breaks came on Radio 4) and St Kitts-born comedian Felix Dexter.

We're nearing the end of this six-part satire on newspapers. It's by Alistair Beaton, one of the sharpest wits around, with wonderful Robert Lindsay as the veteran who still prefers a story to a marketing campaign. I keep wondering why I don't like it more. It seems to me, because it has so much shouting and situation explaining, to have been written for TV but has ended up on radio rather than waste a decent script about things that matter. Today's is about whether to publish an embarrassing story about the Prime Minister. I'll listen.

Mark Thomas is an activist comedian, someone who wears his social consciousness on his very best T-shirt. We're adrift, he says, economically, politically, philosophically. His new stage act invites audience members to help him draw up a manifesto which could begin to remedy this sense of drift. Now he gets Radio 4's constituency into his tent, asking for their suggestions for manifesto items, having a bit of fun with them but also promising to take the best and actually run for election on them. So they might, just, end up as law.

Stephen Fry, the first of Clue's replacement chairmen is, without doubt and in other places, a very funny, clever, witty, charming, versatile man. The problem here is that he shows it by performing every line. Where Lyttelton made them seem as if they had just entered his head, Fry sounds as if each one has been the subject of lengthy study.

The script's rudery, therefore, no longer comes as a surprise. It's overt, intended, inescapable. Victoria Wood, last night's guest panellist, has said she found doing the show "oddly relaxing". Maybe that's why she hardly shone. Or maybe the show is just in transition.