Grayson Perry

Preview - QI: Over and Ova

This week we examine eggs, meet the first flying pig, and hear two Sandi Toksvigs.

Adam Hills, Josh Widdicombe and Alex Brooker offer up some pre-Christmas punch as the team look back over the year, and forward to the festive season. Grayson Perry brushes mince pie crumbs from the spare seat to join the Leggers as they sift through 2016's nice and naughty lists. Is it OK to hope they have uncovered at least a few morsels of merriness from the wreckage of a year that spawned Brexit, president-elect Trump and Cruz Beckham's debut single?

Preview - The Last Leg Christmas Special

The comic news program that shouldn't necessarily make you laugh with its controversial, often offensive, subject matter and awkward sly comments - but I can't deny it, the boys are funny!

Having been in "I hate all Radio 4 comedy" mode for quite some time, I found myself doing actual, real-life guffaws - more than one! - at Heresy on Wednesday evening. It's quite a while since I've done this listening between 6.30 and 7pm, I must say.

There's not much at all to Heresy - it's just a series of received opinions unpicked by witty people in front of a live audience - but, somehow, this week's episode really worked. This was a lot to do with host Victoria Coren Mitchell, who delivers her tinder-dry lines with just the right amount of nonchalance. She's sharp without being nasty or egomaniacal: at certain points in this episode, she formed a sort of comedy alliance with guest Katy Brand, also on great form. Lloyd Langford, a standup, was excellent, and Grayson Perry as hilarious as ever. The person who made me laugh the most, however, was a member of the audience during a discussion about whether anyone would want to own a picture painted by Hitler. I'm not going to spoil his deadpan punchline, but, listeners, I laughed. I honestly did.

Next thing, I'll start liking Radio 2 documentaries... Or maybe not. I do find them irritating. They have great content, but the style, editing and scripts drive me doolally. Too often they come across as documentaries for simpletons, and Radio 2 listeners aren't stupid.

Best of all [of the Playhouse Presents episodes] was last week's Mr Understood, co-created by Grayson Perry and Kate Hardie, about a young man attending his first transvestite social.

Tom Brooke's Gary battles with his shame, played by Tommy McDonnell, who follows him around, spitting insults and insecurities. Everyone else has an embodiment of shame, too: a disco full of transvestite doubles, one smiling while the other heckles, opens out into a heart-swelling scene of self-acceptance as Gary and his other half dance with wild abandon. The next day, though, it's business as usual - nagging doubt that needs drowning out. Television rarely catches the inner life this well, nor attempts characters so complex.

Artist Grayson Perry is a busy bee. The Turner Prize-winning potter picked up a Bafta for documentary series In The Best Possible Taste, dressed as alter-ego Claire. He's also announced a new series - to be screened next year - exploring contemporary British identity.

And tonight he turns his hand to drama, teaming up with writer and director Kate Hardie to create a tale which draws heavily on Perry's own experiences as a transvestite. The action follows the first faltering footsteps of Gary (Tom Brooke) as he ventures out in public for the first time as a woman, while fellow transvestite Jim (Neil Dudgeon, DCI Barnaby from Midsomer Murders) offers him moral support.

Grayson Perry is one of the names - alongside writer/director Kate Hardie - behind this touching tale of a transvestite struggling to come to terms with his urge to dress as a woman. The fear and self-loathing plaguing young Gary (Tom Brooke) are made flesh in the form of Tommy McDonnell's Frank, an obnoxious "inner voice" that adds pathos to a subtle drama that probes aspects of self-identity with wit and intelligence. Neil Dudgeon and Claire Skinner add sterling support.

Co-created by Grayson Perry and Kate Hardie, and starring the remarkable Tom Brooke, this slight drama about the trials of a young transvestite called Gary should have been a whole lot more insightful, funny, moving or just plain odd.

Instead, it feels like a student film, with over-written dialogue, a constraining plot device and little sense of who Gary is, beyond being a bloke who sometimes fancies wearing a frock. With trans issues back in the news following the Lucy Meadows case, there's a real opportunity for a drama to tackle TV on TV, and the daily 'monsterisation' of those who don't have the celebrity swaddling of Perry or Izzard. This isn't it.