Hugh Dennis

The topical comedy panel quiz returns after its summer break. Joining host Dara O Briain and regulars Hugh Dennis, Andy Parsons and Chris Addison are guests Greg Davies, Andi Osho and Stewart Francis - the laconic Canadian one-liner specialist who won the award for best joke at this year'' Edinburgh Fringe Festival with his gag about Posh and Becks giving children a bad name.

Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis embark on a new series of live satire with the Olympics as the butt of the jokes. It could be the athletes, it might be the BBC's coverage or perhaps even G4S's security service that feels the sharp end of their javelin-sharp wit.

Now one of TV's more enduring topical comedy shows - thanks to its high turnover of original comedy voices and a keen eye for spotting upcoming talent - the satirical news quiz returns for an eleventh season. As always, Dara O'Briain keeps a loose grip on the organised chaos as, tonight, team captains Hugh Dennis and Andy Parsons are joined by Nathan Caton, Chris Addison, Micky Flanagan and Greg Davies.

A mainstay of Friday nights (whenever The News Quiz of the Edinburgh Fringe isn't on), Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis's satirical comedy returns for its 37th series.

Along with other regulars Mitch Benn and Jon Holmes, this week's guests were Pippa Evans and John Finnemore. While all had their strengths, my favourite moment was Finnemore's routine about the Eurozone crisis using what was described as, "the longest, most torturous and yet simultaneously the most over-simplistic analogy in Now Show history."

One of the other things I found enjoyable was the show's coverage of the Diamond Jubilee, mainly due to the fact I got just about all of my jubilee coverage from satirical shows. It's less tedious and more spiritually up-lifting than watching the news. I'm not a monarchist - I couldn't care less about some posh lady in a rather fancy hat - so for me this was a nice way of getting all the news while cutting out all the rubbish filling-in that TV channels feel they need to do.

The Now Show proves once again that it's a highly competent satirical comedy that could well continue for another 37 series...

Hugh Dennis opens new attraction

Writer and comedian Hugh Dennis returned to the wilds of North Yorkshire yesterday to open a new attraction that explains the story behind its daramtic landscape.

I am still a little worried that Harvey Easter, the indefatigably cheery protaganist of Mr Blue Sky, will someday soon rip the mask of optimism from his face and go on a killing rampage, starting with his live-in son-in-law-to-be. As this young man, a grimestep DJ who is paid in energy drinks and therefore returns to the Easter household at 5am on a Red Bull high, is called Kill-R, it will give Harvey the opportunity to snarl: "Who's the killer now?" as he takes aim.

When I reviewed last year's first series of Andrew Collins' slow-burning hit comedy, I thought Harvey was bound to 'reverse into gloom' at some stage. The second series opened with his entire family kidnapped and replaced almost wholesale by the cast of TV's Outnumbered, but plucky old Harvey just got on with the job of being happy.

So Mark Benton's Harvey, a performance which is an essay in finely nuanced felicity (and how much harder must this be to play than the sobs of a broken man?) didn't falter even though the detached irony of Rebecca Front, last year's Mrs E, was replaced by Claire Skinner bringing with her Tyger Drew-Honey, both from Outnumbered. Skinner is the leading exponent of wringing comedic value out of the middle-class mum, determined never to yell "Because I said so." And I'm sure I'll get used to her in this, but for now I can't imagine her without chiselled-jawed, puppy-eyed Hugh Dennis as the husband who is a perpetual disappointment.

Tyger took over the role of 16-year-old Robbie with aplomb, asking for money to buy fruit - street slang for drugs - while their older child and bride-to-be, Charlie, was played by Rosamund Hanson with a quirkiness heightened by what was either a speech impediment or a plethora of tongue piercings. The darkness in this solidly engineered comedy, it transpires, is not embedded in Harvey's alter-ego, but swirls all around him as he attempts to hold it back like the tone-deaf, out-of-condition superhero he is.

Hugh Dennis: I'm a happy rambler

How the comedian and Great British Countryside host has unchained himself from his desk.

Hugh Dennis reveals MI5 approach

Comedian Hugh Dennis has revealed that he was approached to work for MI5 as a student.

Sue and Pete (Claire Skinner and Hugh Dennis) decide to go on holiday to the Canary Islands... on Christmas Day. Cue a well-worked against-the-clock farce involving a dental emergency, a house-sitting sister whose boyfriend may or may not have a criminal record, and a visit to Sue's father (the excellent David Ryall) in hospital.

After four years and as many series, this sitcom about the daily life of a middle-class family in south London still manages that rare feat of being genuinely funny. Tonight's festive special follows the misadventures of Pete Brockman (Hugh Dennis) and his wife Sue (Claire Skinner) as they take their family to the Canary Islands. They're hoping to spend a sunny, stress-free Christmas - doubtless a prelude to a comic disaster.