Hugh Dennis

Final chapters from a series that has been less Jackanory for adults, more finding your TV tuned to audio description mode during a genial Tales Of The Unexpected reboot. Before the big book is placed back into the bookcase, there's time for Hugh Dennis to tell the tale of Jack, a superhero juggling his day job at a care home with the marginally more exciting world of cat rescue. Then, Stephen Mangan reads the story of a former activist rediscovering his idealistic edge when confronted with a chicken-chomping despot.

I've always had a vague idea that Three Men in a Boat, with the participants' interminable discussions of the state of their innards, renditions of unfunny jokes and constant trips to the pub, just wasn't for me. Boys' stuff.

Then along comes a Sparklab production for BBC Radio 4's Classic Serial that leaves me helpless with laughter and admiration. So I recant my former unthinking critique - the kind of thing the book's author Jerome K Jerome was well used to as he declared himself "the best abused writer in England" for a good 20 years after its 1889 publication.

The tale of a trio of under-the-weather Edwardian gents who think a paddle up the Thames will be good for their constitutions is adapted by Chris Harrald and produced by Melanie Harris with a fine attention to detail and an ear for the nuances of a comic literary style.

The glorious prelude to getting afloat - the haphazard packing, the oversleeping, the ineffectual navigation of Waterloo Station - is a cumulative humour attack, as are the thought bubbles about previous comic mishaps, which are worked up into delightful setpieces.

Most striking is how contemporary are the characters' preoccupations. Okay, there are no smartphones, takeaways or hip hop, and J has to visit the British Library to indulge his hypochondriacal tendencies. But his conclusion that he suffers from every condition listed in an A-Z of diseases, barring housemaid's knee - which he finds rather hurtful - will be familiar to many who google their suspected symptoms.

None of the cast - Julian Rhind-Tutt, Hugh Dennis and his erstwhile double-act partner Steve Punt - aims to grab the comic glory or play to the gallery. In fact, they are all rather Pooterish, and, as in the Grossmiths' The Diary of a Nobody, whose protagonist begat that term, the emphasis is on a wryness of tone and a synthesis of apparently unintentional hilarity.

Hugh Dennis on being an idiot around Hugh Laurie

He'd have a puppet play him in a movie and get Alastair McGowan to do his voice - if only he could stay cool in front of the other Hugh...

Eager to know why Manuel from Fawlty Towers had a moustache? The worst thing about being in Blackadder? Or maybe which actors had to bring their own clothes to film a hit pilot? The answers to these hot-button issues in Jo Brand's poorly disguised old-timey clip-show are perfectly pitched, provoking - if anything - the kind of weary, non-committal, slightly surly shrug that's engendered by watching the actual programme itself.

Brand presides over a genial half-hour of sitcom quizzery that sees team leaders Rebecca Front and Barry 'Mine's a Large One!' Cryer joined by Hugh Dennis and Tony Robinson for a trawl through some well-thumbed snippets from the BBC archives. Andrew Sachs and Ian Lavender deliver creaky old war stories and Cryer delves into his endless fund of Willie Rushton anecdotes, before a round where the guests all try on a variety of wigs puts the show out of its misery.

Brand and guests are very easy people to like, but this is the worst kind of filler; to damn it with even fainter praise, it's the sort of programme that Alan Partridge would consider 'classic broadcasting'.

Radio Times review

This is billed as a panel game but it's more of a parlour game - perhaps after a stodgy supper, given the pervading air of lethargy - in which four comedy stars flop out on sofas separated by a bank of TV screens from host Jo Brand.

Team captains Rebecca Front and Barry Cryer are joined by guests Tony Robinson and Hugh Dennis, who divulge a few of their own comedy secrets and answer questions that pop up on screen from the likes of Andrew Sachs, Lesley Joseph and Shaun Williamson. It's mildly amusing, but Jo Brand is always better unscripted.

To start with, this felt too much like a great big luvvie love-in, with the voice-over eulogising one comedian (Hugh Dennis) so he could eulogise another (Ronnie Barker). My heart also sank a little when Dennis, more at home deadpanning through Mock the Week, set off to visit the semi where Barker grew up, noting that little was known about his home life. I was braced for the revelation that Barker, a jovial comic giant who made the world seem a happier place with one glance over the top of his spectacles, was an anguished soul who collected broken dolls.
Happily nothing of the kind emerged, and the programme moved on to surer footing with a highly enjoyable trawl through Barker's work, from The Frost Report to The Two Ronnies, Porridge and beyond. Behind-the-scenes glimpses of Barker's creative mind included his meticulous diagrams choreographing a Morris dancing sketch, and a mock press release which chastised David Frost for hogging the credit for the Golden Rose of Montreux award by accusing him of stealing it with the help of unnamed and mysterious accomplices.

It was hard not to get misty-eyed at the footage of Barker accepting his lifetime achievement Bafta in 2004 with typical warmth and wit. The programme captured the end of an era, when Barker's innocent blend of postcard innuendo, verbal tomfoolery and physical hi-jinks personified British comedy - long before the days of Mock the Week.

When he was at Cambridge University, bookish Hugh Dennis was nicknamed "Desk Dennis" by his fellows because he was so serious about his studies. To this day Dennis is a quietly thoughtful rather than raucous comedian. So it's unsurprising that his comedy hero is the resolutely unshowbizzy Ronnie Barker.

In parallel with events in his own career, Dennis looks at Barker's life. He meets actress Dame Eileen Atkins, who got to know Barker during his days in rep, and there's a nice chat with Christopher Biggins about Porridge, which "almost made me want to go to prison," says Dennis.

Hugh Dennis writing Britty Britty Bang Bang book

Hugh Dennis is writing Britty Britty Bang Bang. Subtitled "One Man's Attempt to Understand His Country", the book is described by the publisher as a "humorous and insightful exploration of the changing image of Britain and Britishness".

All the obvious targets were shunted off into the vault of shame a long time ago, so the attraction of Room 101 these days is the window that it gives into the bizarre minds of celebrities.

Without a script, and without anything to plug, what are they really thinking? This week it's showbiz legend Cilla Black who provides some of the most unexpected moments, as ­comedian Frank Skinner invites his guests to nominate their pet hates concerning people and modern life, plus their wild card entry.

"When I used to watch you on TV I used to wonder what we'd talk about if we ever met," Frank admits. "I never expected this." His other guests, Outnumbered star Hugh Dennis and Great British Bake Off presenter Mel Giedroyc, can only stare in wonder as Cilla explains her gripe with one particular gadget.

But Frank has also got an old clip of Cilla that's odder than the rest of the show put together.