Graeme Garden

Matt Lucas's solo project, minus his comedy partner David Walliams, is the flip side to Room 101. Instead of nominating the worst things in various categories, his guests each week will be nominating the best - although sometimes, as tonight, they're giving awards to the worst too.

This show started life on radio in 2009 called And the Winner Is. They recorded an unbroadcast pilot last year which was staged to look like a glitzy award ceremony, but that felt too formal, and so they've taken the show in completely the other direction and it's now shot in a studio masquerading as Matt's front room. His mother's in it too, and it really is his mum - not just Matt in a wig.

It's a fun concept that ought to work - and it also deserves a Matt Lucas Award of its own for the Best Title Song For A Comedy Panel Show as well as Most Overqualified House Band. David Arnold, who's seated at the piano, didn't just write the theme tune for Little Britain and Come Fly With Me, he's most famous as the composer of the last five James Bonds.

The trouble in this first episode is the lack of chemistry between the guests. Jason Manford is a safe pair of hands on any panel show and Graeme Garden tries hard, but Henning Wehn - the self-styled German Ambassador for Comedy - is a bit of an acquired taste, and from the stony expression on Jason Manford's face, he doesn't get the joke either.

The Matt Lucas Awards are the television version of Lucas's Radio 2 show, And The Winner Is..., a reverse Room 101 where guests offer nominations for the host's consideration and, they hope, approbation.

It's a strange, muddled thing that isn't sure what it wants to be. A panel show? Or perhaps a sitcom of sorts? Lucas is indefatigable as he tries to keep everything together and at least give the show some kind of order. His mum Diana is in the "kitchen" of the set, a mocked-up version of Lucas's flat, but she has very little to do, which is a shame as she's charming and sweet.

Guests Graeme Garden (who is particularly game, though he mostly looks uncomfortable), Jason Manford (inevitably) and that strange habitué of Radio 4 shows, the simply baffling Henning Wehn present Lucas with their ideas for "smuggest nation of people". Thus Manford rails against Sweden and, yes, Ikea. The best bits involve musician and laconic wit David Arnold, Lucas's house one-man band.

While his partner in catchphrase comedy David Walliams has been busy with headline-grabbing, charitable sporting heroics and judging Britain's Got Talent, Matt Lucas has been developing this panel show that's such an easy win of an idea, it's a wonder nobody's thought of it before. Based on Lucas's radio show And the Winner Is..., the format is a low-key awards ceremony for a diverse array of unsung topics - from "dullest pastime" to "least likely to have actually occurred Bible story".

Each week, three celebrity guests will suggest nominees for various suitably wacky categories and then fight it out with Lucas to prove their case. First up, comedy types Jason Manford, Henning Wehn and Graeme Garden debate subjects such as "dreadfullest football song ever sung" and "smuggest nation of people" (that one's between the Swedes, the Chinese and the English, they reckon). Covering topics we can all muster up an opinion on, it's essentially a more celebratory Room 101. A fun enough watch, if you can stomach the self-indulgent theme tune featuring a cartoon Lucas singing about being "that man from those other shows you like".

Tim Brooke-Taylor receives OBE

Tim Brooke-Taylor has received an OBE for his services to entertainment, following in the footsteps of fellow Goodies Bill Oddie and Graeme Garden.

Graeme Garden: I'm a bit like Mr Micawber, but luckier

Writer, comedian and former Goodie Graeme Garden, 68, lives in Oxfordshire with his second wife Emma.

There is no better place to seek out a little light relief than I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue, now incredibly in its 55th series. Doubtless many long term fans of the show who still pine for Humphrey Lyttelton as chair, but Jack Dee does a fine job, especially when he throws in a few dry asides.

In the first instalment of the new series, recorded at Nottingham's Royal Concert Hall, regulars Graeme Garden, Barry Cryer and Tim Brooke-Taylor were joined by relative newcomer Marcus Brigstocke, the latter managing to impress his cohorts with a classy move during a round of Mornington Cresent. With Colin Sell at the piano and Samantha on the scoreboard, the endless nonsense and wit was still laugh out loud funny, my favourite moment on this occasion being Summertime sung to the theme from Jim'll Fix It.

The main problem I have with I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue as a reviewer is that it's impossible to review such a classic show, one which has been on the air for nearly 40 years. What can you say about it that hasn't been said already?

Well, let's start off with the guest panellist - first-timer Marcus Brigstocke. Out of the four panellists (the others being the three regulars, Tim Brooke-Taylor, Barry Cryer and Graeme Garden), he seemed to have the funniest bits. Maybe he was the funniest, maybe it's the show's view to make the guest look the funniest, I don't know. However, he did seem to have many high points in the episode I listened to - his rendition of "Common People" to the tune of "If You're Happy and Know It", for example, was great.

There was also the introduction of a new round in this show called "Heston's Services". This was akin to similar rounds such as "Book Club" and "Film Club", in this case coming up with meals that Heston Blumenthal would serve at a motorway service station.

The other main component of the show, of course, is host Jack Dee. I know that there are lot of people out there who won't accept him as host and won't be happy until Humphrey Lyttelton is exhumed, reanimated and blowing his trumpet in the chair for all eternity, but Dee does a good job as far as I'm concerned.

The spotlight on ... Cariad Lloyd

Let a little Cariad Lloyd into your life, with her sparky comedy characters, 50-hour Improvathons and numerous allergies. Oh and if you have Tina Fey or Graeme Garden's emails, please do forward this on.

Goodies pair 'thrilled' with OBEs

Goodies stars Graeme Garden and Tim Brooke-Taylor said they were thrilled to be given OBEs in the Queen's Birthday Honours List - after spending years poking fun at the honours system.

To mark the 40th anniversary of The Goodies' television debut, Ross Noble chats to Bill Oddie, Tim Brooke-Taylor and Graeme Garden about giant cats, trandems and rampaging Dougals. Along the way we learn of the trio's superstar status in Australia and how Weymouth was able to double for the North Pole and the Moon, plus reminiscences of doing the funky gibbon on Top of the Pops. All three performers prove to be expansive interviewees, even going so far as to discuss any regrets about blacking up for certain sketches and how they felt about comedy competitors Monty Python's Flying Circus. Guest stars Patrick Moore and Michael Aspel also offer anecdotes, the former recalling his turn as a punk and the latter on being flattened by Kitten Kong.