Gillian Reynolds

The title refers to one of Tommy Cooper's favourite tricks. But there's a subtitle to this portrait of a much-loved comedian, The Two Sides of Tommy Cooper, reflecting Cooper's fascination with the craft of magic as well as his genius for turning an apparent failure at it into a great stage act. We hear (as you may have gathered from the incessant trailers) from other stage magicians about how serious you have to be about the business to turn it into laughter. Discover the people and places where magic is a trade. Rob Brydon presents.

Snappy chat and comment on the week's events, always worth a listen and definitely a step up from Radio 4's weary The News Quiz.

Ricky Tomlinson and Johnny Vegas shine as two enterprising brothers, itinerant Liverpool plasterers, contracted onto a refurbishment job at the Public Records office, who stumble on a great State secret when they nick the Queen's marriage certificate. Andrew Lynch's comedy is full of sharp digs about "that nice royal butler we know", knowing insights into the sly life, close encounters with authority, quick glimpses of the difference between what a man really says to his wife and what he tells his mates. Funny, but a bit slow to get going.

Ray Galton and Alan Simpson have been writing together for 60 years and given us classic comedies. If they never write another word we are all in their debt. Radio 2 had a good idea to celebrate their partnership by recreating some of their old scripts for today's new comedy stars. The last in the series was Paul Merton in the role Tony Hancock made famous, The Blood Donor.

Actually, it was written for Arthur Lowe so, in theory, it should have passed easily into another voice. Unfortunately, it didn't. Merton sounded as if he were reading. So did June Whitfield's daughter, Suzy Aitchison, playing the nurse, the role her mother took so memorably 48 years ago. Why? It wasn't the script or the players. It's the art of good comedy production that's gone missing. The technical process has grown easier. The making of words into magic remains a tricky art.

This short comedy season, celebrating the 60-year writing partnership of Ray Galton and Alan Simpson by putting on a quartet of old scripts with new performers, ends on a bold note. Paul Merton recreates The Blood Donor, written for and performed by Tony Hancock in 1961, the classic where our self-important hero answers the call and gets a few surprises. It's bold of Merton to attempt this as, try as he may to present himself as a curmudgeon, everyone thinks he's a nice guy because, unlike Hancock, we feel we know his personality through panel games.

In Something Fresh The Classic Serial makes a welcome return to the world of PG Wodehouse. We're at Blandings Castle where Lord Emsworth (Martin Jarvis) has in his possession a valuable scarab which two rogues, played by Ioan Gruffudd and Helen McCrory, are after. Wonderful cast altogether, with Morgan Sheppard as Beach the butler and Ian Ogilvy as the voice of Wodehouse.

Andy Hamilton's glorious radio comedy returns for a new series. It may be bad luck for Hamilton's bank account that it's unlikely to transfer to TV (too expensive, too topical, too funny) but it's good news for listeners who discover tonight how many bankers are now in Hell, what to do with a dog that's suddenly turned up there and why God appears to be on a gap year. Hamilton, as ever, plays Satan, attended by lesser devils Scumspawn and Thomas (Robert Duncan and Jimmy Mulville). Annette Crosbie plays Satan's crisply academic biographer.

Sally Phillips plays Clare, self-absorbed social worker and new mother in the latest series of the sitcom by Harry Venning and David Ramsden. In their meticulously observed comedy of modern manners, Liza Tarbuck plays best friend Helen, Alex Lowe is Brian, the proud new father, whose best mate is Simon (Andrew Wincott), Helen's ex-husband. Nina Conti retains her role of put-upon Megan and doubles up as Nali, the au pair (not nearly as put-upon as she at first seems). Meanwhile, is this baby to be called Mandela, Mahatma or Thomas Paine?

By some strange turn of fate the new Classic Serial is Scoop, Evelyn Waugh's satire on the press (its ownership, practices and function). The story is simple. We are in the 1930s. A mighty newspaper proprietor, Lord Copper, believes wars are good for countries because they unite people against a known enemy. He is persuaded by a beautiful society hostess to send one of her social pets, John Boot, to report the war in far-off Ishmaelia. By mistake, another Boot, William, who writes the Daily Beast's nature notebook, is dispatched. William knows nothing of abroad or reporting. We understand that, like Voltaire's Candide, he will somehow come out of this mess quite well and make us laugh a lot. Jeremy Front has done a deft, sly adaptation, bringing out the brilliance of the characters. Sally Avens has cast it very well (Rory Kinnear as William and Stephen Critchlow as Corker are perfect, David Warner as Lord Copper is pluperfect) and directs it with panache. A better antidote to hysteria cannot be imagined.

The new Classic Serial is Evelyn Waugh's abidingly comic novel, adapted by clever Jeremy Front (who, among many other things, also does the Charles Paris mysteries on this network). Rory Kinnear plays William Boot, an obscure young country scribe mistaken by mighty newspaper publisher Lord Copper (David Warner) for urbane and experienced reporter John Boot and sent off to report on a war in far-off Ishmaelia. Boot, often thought to resemble the great Bill Deedes in his early days on Fleet Street, flounders out of his depth, gets much wrong but, in the wicked world which surrounds him, somehow shines through.