Ian Wolf

This new chat show hosted by Claudia Winkleman has already been called by most critics a "reverse Room 101", in that Winkleman attempts to decide which are the best things in a certain category, with the help of guests.

In this case, Sarah Millican and Chris Evans helped Winkleman choose the king of holidays, jobs and cheese - a somewhat broad choice of subjects, but Winkleman claims she was to cover everything, and put it down in a book she intends to give to her children.

This made for an interesting watch. Seeing Winkleman and Millican talk was like watching a funny Loose Women, or to put it another way, a good Loose Women that I might be tempted to actually watch. I especially enjoyed Millican's line about her attempt to discuss the future with her boyfriend at Euro Disney.

There were some turn offs, though, for me. The audience were a bit annoying, seemingly cheering at any point, and I would disagree with some of Winkleman's choices (surely the king of jobs would by king?) - but it was an interesting first watch and I'll probably take a look at next week's offering, too.

This now long-running Channel 4 panel game has seen some changes over the years. In this series, Jon Richardson has replaced Jason Manford as team captain; the opening round, "What Are You Talking About?", also now only covers the top three most talked about things in Britain as opposed to the original five. The other major change is that the total scores are no longer mentioned, with host Jimmy Carr now simply saying who's won, rather like Mock the Week.

The one major problem I have with 8 Out of 10 Cats is that almost every time there is always one guest who you'd rather not have on the programme. I went through the panel before the show began thinking to myself: "Russell Kane - established, award winning comic and deserves to be on. Josh Widdicombe - a relatively unknown comic who can use this appearance as his big break. Rachel Riley - well, as someone who regularly co-presents Countdown she has experience of quiz formats. Alex Reid - oh, damn!"

However, having said that, I did enjoy the fact that Reid didn't take himself too seriously, taking part in some pretty self-deprecating humour. However, the guest comics, as to be expected, did perform better; Kane's story about a woman he accidentally offended on a train was a particular highlight.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about this show is that the unbroadcast pilot has been made available online.

The Matt Lucas Awards is a TV version of the BBC Radio 2 show And the Winner Is... in which the Little Britain star presents the Lucas Awards to unusual categories, the nominations being decided by three celebrity guests. The BBC decided that the pilot was so good that they've commissioned a full series and have released the pilot on their comedy website.

The first episode featured Dave Gorman, Ruby Wax and Jack Whitehall as guests suggesting nominations for the Lucas Awards for "Most Incomprehensible British Accent", "The Guest with The Most Useless Talent" and "Worst Song by an Otherwise Reputable Artist". Out of the guests, for me it was Wax who was funniest, especially with her ability to memories 400 different camp songs, and her attempt to call Blue's Anthony Costa on Whitehall's mobile phone.

I also enjoyed what Lucas and his house band, David Arnold and The Available Session Musicians, referred to as the "excruciating theme tune", which for me wasn't excruciating at all, but rather jolly.

Overall, it's clear to see why the BBC felt comfortable putting this pilot out - whether or not they will put the pilot on the TV before the series goes out is another matter.

I was somewhat dreading having to watch this, fearing it was going to be something akin to Life of Riley and other unfunny nonsense. But while In With the Flynns is not the funniest sitcom ever made, it does have its moments.

The first thing which strikes the viewer is the way the show is filmed. While this show was made in front of a studio audience, the filming looks much more realistic than a programme like Life of Riley or My Family. When you first see it, it doesn't feel quite right, but you soon get used to it.

As a pre-watershed TV sitcom there is very little in the way of offensive material. The closest to anything really disgusting was one of the sons in the family admitting to eating a pasty from a bin, which for me was one of the best bits, as well as admitting he got free soup from people who were serving it to the homeless.

Other decent comic moments included the eldest member of the family, Jim (Warren Clarke), going on a date with a woman he met in a car boot sale - but still making the woman pay £1.50 for a scart lead.

However, for me the best and worst moments were the flashbacks. This was an interesting comedic device, synonymous with In With the Flynns writers like Daniel Peak (who also employs similar cutaways in Mongrels). The best comic moment was a bit of slapstick involving an eyebrow piercing. The worst, however, was when the other son, who was being bullied, walked into a lamppost - which was clearly fake.

In With the Flynns isn't going to set the comic world alight, and many critics will be rallying against it, but in terms of pre-watershed sitcoms, it isn't the worst show in recent years.

This week saw Mock the Week enter into double-figures as the show entered its 10th series. Judging by the latest episode, it's set to continue for some time to come.

Without Russell Howard, the show guest starred Chris Addison, Greg Davies, Milton Jones and Seann Walsh. Out of the guests, it was Jones, with his surreal and clever one-liners, and Walsh, who came up with the best Michael McIntyre impression I've ever come across, who stole the show. The other comics had moments too, with Davies coming up with a Blackadderesque extended simile about his grandmother's use of facial products.

There was some interesting stuff from the regulars as well, such as Dara O'Briain introducing a round called: "There's No Super-injunction on our Ryan Gags", and Hugh Dennis's running joke about Sepp Blatter's name sounding like the German for "step ladder".

Annoyingly, like in so many satirical comedies, many of the jokes were lazy. Addison did one about Eric Pickles and his weight, while Walsh made one about Wayne Rooney's stupidity. Walsh also got a rather cheap laugh from making up a taunted schoolboy called Richard Poowillie.

I have to admit this is the first time I have watched Horrible Histories, which is strange because I loved the books when I was a kid. Having watched the first episode in the new series it is clear that this is something I've grown out of, as sadly this show is not for me.

It is such a shame because it is clearly popular with both its target audience of children, with some adults, and with the people who decided to give it the British Comedy Award for "Best Sketch Comedy". However, for me much of it was just annoying. For example, one episode featured a Roman general trying to kill 5,000 people in battle so that he could get a parade, but the enemy surrendered after 4,999 deaths, so the general kills a Roman bureaucrat to reach the total. That is all right as an idea for a sketch, but then the general did this annoying beat-boxing at the end to celebrate reaching 5,000.

It wasn't the only thing annoying thing about the show. There was also a parody of the Adam and the Ants song "Stand and Deliver" telling the story of Dick Turpin, which just got on my nerves; all the way through the show little signs kept popping up saying things like, "This really happened!", which wound me up; and there was a sketch about a French prankster - although to be fair the character was deliberately meant to be annoying.

Also, this show also had quite a lot of jokes involving and seeing faeces. To be fair however, at least the sketch was teaching children about gong farmers (people paid to remove human waste) and tanners (people who used poo to make leather), whereas in Lead Balloon it just came out in one sudden unpleasant burst.

I suppose the way to conclude this review is that if you like it, good for you, because there is more to come. There is already a spin-off called Gory Games which features Dave Lamb as a co-host - interesting to see that he is willing to entertain children face-to-face but not adults. I'm guessing children are much easier to please.

Horrible Histories is also being re-worked for a primetime audience, with Stephen Fry acting as a host. However, I don't think even he is going to make me watch it. For me, this is a children's sketch show that the children can keep for themselves.

I can remember the great Irish stand-up comic Dylan Moran once saying that whenever you are having a discussion with a German, all that you are thinking about when they talk is: "Yeah, yeah, Hitler, Hitler, Hitler, Hitler, Hitler..."

In the same way, I suspect that many people watch Jack Dee's Lead Balloon while for most of the time they are thinking: "Yeah, yeah, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Curb, Curb, Curb Your Enthusiasm," and perhaps throwing in the occasional, "Larry David" for a bit of variety.

I myself have never been the biggest Lead Balloon fan, but it was funny in parts. One subplot of the opening episode was of failed stand-up Rick Spleen (Dee) trying to write a book, a scenario which did make me chuckle when Dee asked if, "They sell books in Lidl?"

The actual main plot was Spleen preparing, or rather hijacking, a Sunday Times interview featuring his wife, and trying to make himself more interesting by getting a pet pig. The main scene near the end featured Spleen trying to get the pig out from underneath a table which was amusing... at first... and then the pig shat on him.

Now I don't mind toilet humour, but I am of the view that excrement is a much funnier when it is talked about rather than appearing on screen. The scene was too disgustingly graphic to be funny for me.

There are quite a few things to be said about this panel show pilot made for digital channel Dave. First of all, it's better than Compete for the Meat.

Hosted by Alexander Armstrong, the main hook of this show is that the panellists - in this case Robert Webb, Katy Brand and Griff Rhys Jones - have to come up with the questions and they score points if their opponents fail to get them right. It has already been described as QI without the researchers.

There were some interesting things that popped up during the course of the show, such as the fact that in Victorian times green dye contained arsenic, so people were being slowly killed by their wallpaper. Not all the questions were based on far-flung info through, as one round consisted of trying to come up with funny questions to ask famous people. There was one example by Webb towards Louis Spence which I won't repeat here, but I can tell you mentioned the f-word.

One aspect that grabbed my attention was Dave Lamb, who was in the show's "Fact Bunker" checking out all the answers, and who only appeared on a television inside the studio. The thing is, I reviewed his radio show last week, in which he played an agoraphobic conspiracy theorist, and now he's on a TV show with a studio audience, but not appearing in front of them in the flesh. Is this where he gets his ideas from?

In terms of intellectual comedy, I don't think you can top QI, but Big Ask is a decent attempt and is no doubt much cheaper, which is important to a digital channel facing competition from bigger broadcasters. On this show they don''need to spend money on researchers - instead they spend the money on electronic tablets for each of the panellists, because let's be fair it is a bit of bore just using your mouth.

Having said that, I still think that it was an entertaining pilot and I hope a full series comes out of it.

This Radio 2 pilot also has a live studio audience, but unlike the one watching Dave Against the Machine, this one appeared to be enjoying the show.

This "Comedy Showcase" pilot is an impressionist show covering the behind-the-scenes goings on at Radio 2. It would be lazy and predictable to describe the show as a Radio 2 version of Dead Ringers, but unfortunately that's just what I've done.

It was an entertaining listen, with the first sketch, featuring an incredibly banal and annoying Lily Allen singing to herself about stealing teabags and going to the lavatory, being a great opener. There was also the news being read out by Cheryl Cole; Alan Dedicoat acting as the voice of the Radio 2 lifts; and Shakin' Stevens and Bonnie Tyler's diabolical plan to re-launch their careers.

Admittedly some of the impressions were a bit off, such as the ghost of Winston Churchill appearing on Jeremy Vine's show, but it was still a good sketch with Churchill deciding to launch a pop career. There was also a sketch featuring Louis Spence, which given the fact that he is a dancer might work better on TV.

Personally, my favourite featured an egotistical Sting taking part in Ken Bruce's "Pop Master". Not only did the impression sound right, but it was funny. Mind you, it was always going to find it funny as I don't like Sting. That's what you get when your parents are the biggest Police fans in Teesside.

Usually "Comedy Showcase" pilots do not get full series. In fact, none of them have - which is a shame because I think that Reception could work as a full series - but I for one hope it does.

This new Radio 4 sitcom is written by and stars Dave Lamb, who is most famous for doing the voice overs for Come Dine With Me, as agoraphobic conspiracy theorist Dave Railings - presumably Lamb did not want to bother having to act someone with a different name.

In this first episode, Dave's younger brother Jim (Jim North - again another person who seems unwilling to playing someone with a different name) makes friends with an Asian Geordie newsagent Hannan (Jess Robinson) and decorates a birthday cake for her son Alan (named after Shearer). However, Dave becomes convinced that the cake is actually a bomb planted by the Americans to kill masses of people to lessen the damage caused be peak oil.

Much of the humour is of the cringing sort. For example, when Jim learns that Hannan's husband is, "no longer with us", Jim exclaims with joy. Dave later asks young Alan is his father, "died with a... kaboooooom?"

The ideas that spring from this show are rather off the wall but nonetheless interesting ones. For example, in next week's episode Dave's post arrives on time, leading him to think his normal postman has been kidnapped by an alien.

However, nothing seems to be hugely laugh-out-loud, as was evidenced by the lack of belly laughs from the studio audience at the recording. Interesting, isn't it, that a sitcom broadcast at 11pm feels the need for a laughter track, whereas the CBBC sketch show Sorry, I've Got No Head which goes out at 5pm doesn't see the need for one (see last week's TV review)?