Griff Rhys Jones

Griff Rhys Jones: Mel & I didn't have much in common

Making shows with the late Mel Smith was 'not exactly a marriage made in heaven', his comedy partner Griff Rhys Jones has admitted.

Lenny Henry remembers the first Red Nose Day in 1988

The comedian recalls presenting the final sketch of the first ever Red Nose Day with Griff Rhys Jones and Jonathan Ross.

The ubiquitous Griff Rhys Jones's comedy panel series reaches its final episode tonight. Captains Marcus Brigstocke and Charlie Baker are joined by journalist Grace Dent and comedian Rob Rouse. As ever, their knowledge of recent history - and ready wit - are tested via a bewilderingly broad range of archive footage.

Although its derivative format and focus on the relatively recent past makes it feel at times a little like Have I Got Some Really Very Stale News for You, when it hits its stride this Griff Rhys Jones-chaired comedy quiz can provoke an occasional belly laugh. Tonight, comedians Robin Ince and Andi Osho join the reliably acerbic team captains Marcus Brigstocke and Charlie Baker, attempting to answer random questions on a wide range of tentatively historical topics.

Alan bounces back with an hour-long special, the first of two for Sky Atlantic. In a note-perfect parody of the sort of lightweight travelogue prersented by Griff Rhys Jones, complete with cheapo graphics and amateurish editing, Welcome To The Places Of My Life sees Partridge providing a social history of the Norwich that made him. The concept drags a touch over the extended running time but there are many wonderful moments, especially the revelation that Partridge likes to imagine the sheep in a nearby field as people who have wronged him: "Andrew Marr, the Dimbleby brothers, loads of builders."

Griff Rhys Jones blog

Comedian, TV presenter and 'renaissance man' Griff Rhys Jones on getting rich, his desire to be liked, and the 'love of a good woman'.

Yes, it's yet another panel game, although given that this series is only four episodes long rather than the conventional six, you can't help but think Channel 4 don't have much faith in it.

Hosted by Griff Rhys Jones and featuring team captains Marcus Brigstocke and Charlie Baker, A Short History of Everything Else uses old film footage to ask questions about recent history, from the famous to the obscure.

Watching this show, I can't help but think that it's just too much like Have I Got News for You. The key difference, though, is that the questions are too old to be satirical enough and the set is a bit more high-tech. This one actually features TV monitors rather than just turning boards!

Most of the humour in the show come not from the footage, but the panel insulting each other and trying to mock Rhys Jones (mostly over an old beer advert he did). That's all well and good, but it'd be much better if they could get more funny still from their video archives.

If I were a betting man, I'd say before long this show will be history...

The last time I saw Griff Rhys Jones on television was during the Jubilee pageant, when he was meandering up the Thames in a motor launch. I thought he looked miserable then, but that was nothing compared to how fed up he appeared presenting the first episode of the comedy panel quiz show, A Short History of Everything Else (Channel 4). Griff's script opened with: "We're off down memory lane without a seat belt ... because we didn't have to wear them in those days" and went downhill thereafter. His rictus smile throughout was almost certainly pain, though it would be more charitable to put it down to professionalism.

It wasn't just the script that was desperate: it was the concept as well. It was as though someone in the commissioning department had watched a couple of episodes of Have I Got News For You on Dave and come up with the brainwave of dispensing with topicality and making a news show that would feel like a repeat the first time you watched it. From round to round, the format never changed; Griff would make some crap gags to introduce a sequence of archive footage before inviting the two team captains - Marcus Brigstocke and Charlie Baker - along with guests Micky Flanagan and Kirsty Wark to make their own crap gags. I guess it was cheap, but it wasn't funny.

Brigstocke looked for a moment as if he thought he had actually wandered on to the set of a HIGNFY repeat as he gave a passable imitation of an extremely grumpy Paul Merton, looking permanently pissed off and not laughing at anyone else's jokes. But, on reflection, he was probably just annoyed he too had let himself be talked into signing up for such a turkey.

Satire just doesn't work on 30 year-old archive footage. Margaret Thatcher gags stopped having any edge the moment Ben Elton started making them in the 1980s. As for the old clips of Elton John having a tantrum and the 70s beer adverts ... For what it's worth, Charlie and Kirsty won by 15 points to 14. The result might seem rather more relevant in five years though, after the show has been repeated a few times.

Griff Rhys Jones: When exactly was that, then?

The past catches up with the present for Griff Rhys Jones as host of a panel show that grapples with recent history.