Gillian Reynolds

Another Case of Milton Jones makes the studio audience whoop with delight. Jones is, as Radio 4's trailers so often tell us, a Perrier Award-winning comedian.

He does not swear. He is not rude. He is a word play man, more Dandy than Punch. He has adventures, as in very old radio comedy shows like ITMA with Tommy Handley or Up the Pole with Jewell and Warris.

Last night he was a photographer. Every time he mentioned a lens, a lens case or a lens cap up would pop Len, who'd say: I've been looking for that. There are running gags, as with Len, or a repeated line, Give me that sexy look, perhaps undo a few buttons on your blouse... and an unexpected voice, that of a man or the Queen, will reply.

He was snapping a calendar, of unusual sights. An Italian driving carefully, that's January... A laughing German, that's November.

Maybe you have to be there to roar with mirth. Or maybe someone is pumping laughing gas into that studio.

Gillian Reynolds Review

The point of comedy like this is to see ourselves but at just enough of a distance to make it bearable, with just enough of a twist to make us laugh. I smiled a bit but was otherwise too busy feeling the pain. I think, though, once I've stopped worrying about whether I did the right thing about equity release, it may grow on me.

Clive Coleman's generation gap sitcom stars Kris Marshall (you know, the stepdad from the BT ads) as Harry, a forty-something who's somewhat alarmed by his father's spending habits, his father Brian (Kenneth Cranham), being rich and unencumbered by school fees, mortgage, etc. And there's prosperous brother Richard (Chris Pavlo) to reckon with too, the one who buys Dad expensive golf clubs. The brothers take Dad out while the womenfolk set up his surprise 65th birthday party. Back in the kitchen, control freak wars erupt.

Hurray! Return of the tonic and inventive show which sends up politics while making fun of all manner of musical genres. Tonight: Washington High School Musical, in which the chorus open the show with a fine Grease-reminiscent chorus Go, Georgie, Go. So, who's going to be the next President of Washington High? Will it be Hillary, 'the lady they love to pillory' as she sings plaintively (and with a glorious string of other improbable rhymes for her name)? Will it be Owopboomabamalama Lopbamboom? 'Tell us more,' sing the chorus. Just brilliant.

A play by the poet, writer, performer and genial host of Radio 3's fruitful literary magazine The Verb, Ian McMillan. Frank, like his father before him, grows rhubarb but business isn't as good as it once was. So Frank has to go on the dole but, as he still wants to go on working, he invents a parallel identity, one inspired by the slightly sinister forcing shed where rhubarb (audibly) grows by night. In other words, this piece is fruity, deliciously tart, with hints of Dylan Thomas and Mary Shelley and just bursting with vitamin enhanced quizzicalities.

Depending how cynical you are, now is either the perfect time for political satire or a deliciously dangerous one. This topical sitcom by Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis is about a backbench MP (played by James Fleet) who's utterly at a loss in the backstage machinations of Westminster and now finds himself challenged in his constituency by a rising female Tory star.

Maybe I was once married to Ed Reardon. I know him so well. He grumbles (accurately but ineffectively), grinds out the words (but without much reward), is always broke (and always will be). But, my word, he is funny. And true. Especially now the more successful Mary (Sally Grace) has entered his life, buoying him up, buying the drinks, at war with his cat. I have been half in love with easeful Ed, creation of Christopher Douglas (who also plays him) and Andrew Nickolds, since he first appeared. Now he's back, Radio 4's a cheerier place.

PG Wodehouse's suave Psmith (Nick Caldecott) comes to the rescue of his old school friend, the solid Mike (Inam Mirza) when poor Mike's suddenly impoverished and so forced to leave university to take a humble post in the City. It's a good job, Psmith is working there too, for if ever a cove knew how to get round the Head of Post, even subdue the very bossy boss, it's Psmith. Simon Williams narrates. Marcy Kahan, an award-winning playwright clever enough to turn Noël Coward into a credible detective, has done the natty four-part adaptation.

Edge Falls, your out of town retail Mecca, the comic brain child of Paul Barnhill and Neil Warhurst, returns. Mark Benton plays Mick, hapless head of security. Frances Barber plays the ingenious promotions manager Sonya, raising a giant pink inflatable love heart over the shops to bring in the pink pound. And all the staff has to be gay friendly too, but only to friendly gays (nothing ostentatious). We're gay for the day, says Sonya, before she spots what she thinks is a bit of hanky panky in the carpark. The spoof commercials are a treat, though.

There's a philosophical Welsh poet who turns out to be a postman, a white South African who's well hard, a dodgy, randy businessman who's seldom off the phone and a dreamy Rasta, and they're all telling their stories to Nat Segnit who's met them on British trains.

Or, to tell the truth, each of them is a brainchild of Segnit and the actor Stewart Wright who have put them together into a pretend feature that's quite like the real thing, only it's funnier.

So don't stop talking to strangers on trains but do listen to this for quite a few unexpected laughs.