Harry Venning

I've Never Seen Star Wars, hosted by Marcus Brigstocke, encourages celebrity guests to try completely new experiences.

This week's guest was John Humphrys from the Today programme. Unable to change the habit of a lifetime, Humphrys persistently talked over Brigstocke, disrupting his patter and obliterating several punch lines. Brigstocke, like a conscientious midwife, stayed with the script until all the gags were safely delivered, although some of the spontaneity was lost in the process.

Shows like I've Never Seen Star Wars are heavily dependent upon the comic input of their guests, and John Humphrys was not a particularly forthcoming one.

The original radio format is left almost intact, undisturbed by any visual innovation. Close your eyes and all you would have missed would have been a short moondancing lesson from Brigstocke and a cluttered set design heavily reminiscent of Room 101.

Genius offered a little bit more in the way of things to look at than I've Never Seen Star Wars did. Things like a whiteboard with felt pens, a scale model of a running track, complete with moving athlete and a pair of shoes, but even these failed to disguise the show's Radio 4 origins.

Dave Gorman hosts, aided and abetted by a guest celebrity, and together they sift through eccentric innovations and idiotic inventions sent in by the public. Such as the 100-metre high shoes to allow the unfit to compete in Olympic sprints by falling forward. Which is funny, but the gag is over once the idea has been shared, rendering Gorman's subsequent product analysis largely superfluous.

Review from The Stage

Such was the popular enthusiasm and critical acclaim for Gavin & Stacey that someone at the BBC had the bright idea of inviting its male stars, Mathew Horne and James Corden, to write and perform their own sketch show. After all, anyone can churn out a sketch show, can't they? Horne and Corden are clearly accomplished comic actors, but they are just not comedians and introducing themselves as such at the beginning of the show misfired badly.

Review of the Comic Relief Special: Having crammed the casts of all three programmes onto one small set, leaving them with little to do except stand awkwardly around like infants at a Christmas concert, the show proceeded to unleash a barrage of the lamest jokes ever be to inflicted in the name of charity. In a good cause? Certainly. Terrible? Definitely. But then my opinion is poisoned by an abiding aversion to Coming Of Age. Working to combat poverty, suffering and injustice is all well and good, but if Comic Relief promised to eradicate Coming Of Age I would really put my hand in my pocket.

Review of the joint Comic Relief Special with Two Pints and Grownups: Having crammed the casts of all three programmes onto one small set, leaving them with little to do except stand awkwardly around like infants at a Christmas concert, the show proceeded to unleash a barrage of the lamest jokes ever be to inflicted in the name of charity. In a good cause? Certainly. Terrible? Definitely. But then my opinion is poisoned by an abiding aversion to Coming Of Age. Working to combat poverty, suffering and injustice is all well and good, but if Comic Relief promised to eradicate Coming Of Age I would really put my hand in my pocket.

Review in The Stage

It is hard not to like Al Murray, but with each episode of Al Murray's Multiple Personality Disorder it is getting progressively easier.

When it comes to character-based sketch shows, Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse have set the bar high, and Al Murray has chosen to walk underneath it. This is very lazy comedy, both in the performances and in the writing. Is there anyone out there who really thinks the world needs another Dragon's Den pastiche?

Far from showcasing Murray's versatility, it merely serves to expose his very limited abilities as an actor, with most of the sketches chronically dependent upon ridiculous costumes and cod accents to get laughs.

The show is a huge and surprising disappointment, given Murray's comedy pedigree. None of the characters come within a mile of Murray's Pub Landlord for originality or sophistication, and some are so ill conceived as to be borderline offensive. The outrageous gay Nazi on Hitler's chief of staff would have been funny if it had mocked Nazis, or Hitler, or homophobia even. But the sketch's comedy ambitions fell far short of making any satirical point whatsoever, and Hitler came out of it better than Murray did.

Also recommended is the return of Clare in the Community, written by David Ramsden and Harry Venning. In the first part of the latest series we found out how Clare (Sally Phillips) was coping with motherhood, or at least how the au pair was managing. Names were also an issue - should the baby be called Thomas or Obama, and what was that woman at the family centre called who had given 20 years' dedicated service? Beautifully observed performances from an impressive cast and some genuinely funny writing make this a must.

Harry Venning and David Ramsden's Clare In the Community is a lesson in how to return, series after series, with freshly reworked comic material. Sally Phillips' social worker Clare has become the mother of little Thomas Paine (after the social reformer, following a flirtation with the name Mahatma). Her world view has become more excruciating than ever, ramping up the comedy to heady heights.

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?

The first thing you notice about Free Agents is the script. Witty, clever, caustic, shocking and seriously scatological, it is very impressive. So impressive, in fact, that for much of Free Agents you don't notice anything else.

Stephen Mangan and Sharon Horgan star as colleagues at an actors' agency who share an ill-judged night of passion and awake having to deal with the professional and personal consequences. Anthony Head co-stars, and steals scenes, as their lascivious, seedy and sex-obsessed boss who offers them his own perverse brand of agony uncle advice.

Mangan and Horgan are both very fine actors, but seem forever at the service of the shows dialogue. It's a bit churlish to complain about an excess of brilliant one-liners, but the initially breathtaking effect does soon wear off, and it becomes something of an effort to keep up with. Hopefully future episodes will give the characters a little more room to develop, and Free Agents will realise its full potential. It is already 50% funnier that most other comedies, so it can afford to relax a little.