Jack Dee

Shooting Stars 'back in autumn'

Surreal comedy quiz show Shooting Stars will return to the BBC this autumn, according to its stars Vic Reeves and Matt Lucas.

Reeves, 50 - real name Jim Moir - told the Daily Express the show would return with Ulrika Jonsson and Jack Dee as team hosts.

Three into one can go, but they won't replace Humph

It is a tribute to the magnificent Humphrey Lyttelton that his replacement as host of I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue has been named as Stephen Fry. And Rob Brydon. And Jack Dee. A revolving comic trinity, in place of the one god.

Fry, Dee and Brydon take on Clue

Stephen Fry, Jack Dee and Rob Brydon are to share hosting duties for a new series of BBC Radio 4 comedy panel show I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue this summer. The series, which begins recording in April, will be aired in June and will be the show's first appearance since host Humphrey Lyttelton died in 2008.

One of the few reliable British sitcoms around, Jack Dee's unfulfilled comic Rick Spleen has a wince-inducing talent for skewering himself. Funny as those mishaps are, Rick's interactions with sullen housekeeper Magda (Anna Crilly) are the real comedy gold.

Don't worry if you missed the 2007 pilot for this series. There's a brief explanation at the start of the first episode. Basically, Rob (Daniel Mays) was dumped by Laura (Spooks' Miranda Raison), and later gleaned from a celeb mag that she was dating Duncan From Blue (played by the man himself). Not only that, they were going to marry. And Rob's been invited to the wedding.

Hacked off that he's been replaced by 'that skating b*****d', Rob is convinced Duncan From Blue (that's his full name in this, not Duncan James) is out to get him. So he decides to prove he's better than DFB and have revenge on his ex by turning up at her wedding with the sexiest woman he can con into being his girlfriend.

It's a simple yet effective idea - for now anyway - and Rob is an entertaining central character - a younger, less grouchy version of Jack Dee's Rick Spleen.

The comedy isn't perfect, and with coarse language it won't be everybody's cup of tea. But if you still miss Teachers, the young, ballsy characters in this should raise a smile.

And there's always the eye candy to enjoy - as well as Duncan James, the show stars former EastEnders heartthrob Nigel Harman. And for the fellas, for this week only, is guest star Susie Amy, who will fulfil many a redblooded man's fantasy by donning a school uniform.

All New Shooting Stars, a one-off special, was an object lesson in never going back. Vic and Bob seemed like their own fathers. The only recognisable celebrity was Jack Dee, who, with a blue tit balanced on his head, stood nose to nose with an opera singer giving Nessun Dorma plenty of welly. Any trembling or precipitation of the tit would indicate failure and cost him a beautiful pillowcase. To watch Dee crack into a smile was joy enough for one night.

Fifteen years ago, Reeves and Mortimer pulled the rug from under panel shows with a jerk that sent their legs in the air. All subsequent panel shows owe something to that Big Bang. Shooting Stars was juvenile, anarchic and fizzing with ricocheting invention. Matt Lucas in a pink romper suit looked as if he might at any moment burst out of his cocoon and become something huge and hungry. Which he did. Visiting celebrities took their lives in their hands. Larry Hagman looked like a man in a nightmare. Stephen Fry was lost in the wash. Johnny Vegas remembered Vic and Bob asking him, Are you drinking tonight? (a question with which he was all too familiar), and adding reassuringly, Because we are.

All New Shooting Stars, a one-off special, was an object lesson in never going back. Vic and Bob seemed like their own fathers. The only recognisable celebrity was Jack Dee, who, with a blue tit balanced on his head, stood nose to nose with an opera singer giving Nessun Dorma plenty of welly. Any trembling or precipitation of the tit would indicate failure and cost him a beautiful pillowcase. To watch Dee crack into a smile was joy enough for one night.

One of the many pleasures of Lead Balloon is the strength and diversity of the ensemble cast. Although the series revolves around the childish egotism of Rick (Jack Dee), everyone else - including the children - behave like grown-ups dealing with a fractious child. His wife reasons with Rick. His writing partner mocks him. Magda suffers him. His daughter and her boyfriend exploit or ignore him. Rick's behaviour, on its own, would be ridiculous and self-defeating. Surrounded by the eccentric sanity of a superb supporting cast, it is funny and vulnerable and endearing.

A brilliantly funny sitcom starring deadpan comic Jack Dee as disillusioned stand-up comedian Rick Spleen.

Although it's easy to understand why Jack Dee's surly sitcom has survived to a third series, you need an electron microscope to find the humour in it these days.

And now that Rick's daughter Sam (played by Antonia Campbell-Hughes) and boyfriend Ben (Rasmus Hardiker) have inexplicably stopped their weekly demands for money, the best bit of the show each week (apart from Magda, obviously) is turning out to be the pre-title sequence when we see Rick at work.