Jack Seale

This throwaway spin-off has quietly eaten its parent, the less likable 8 Out Of 10 Cats. It's in the way Countdown and the comedy interact: once the scripted opening gags are over, the fact that Sean Lock et al are more or less playing properly satisfies viewers who want a panel game to contain an actual game, while the overlong runtime helps bring a loose, tipsy muckabout feel.

This inessential amalgam of Life's Too Short and The Thick Of It is a vanity mockumentary in which David Hasselhoff, who sends himself up constantly anyway, sends himself up. Tonight, David "The Hoff" Hasselhoff (David Hasselhoff) is off to a public school for a mock UN debate, the real UN having literally laughed down the phone at his desire to be an ambassador. Can the sheer force of his dumbness defeat the school's top oik? Lots of good lines, but they're all recycled fragments of other, better shows.

Sacha Dhawan: My generation don't care who plays a part

He's one of the most prominent new British-Asian faces on television, starring in Line Of Duty, Utopia and C4's new comedy Not Safe For Work. Meet the rising actor who won't let his ethnicity define him.

Radio Times review

When this show first aired ten years ago - back when Twitter didn't exist, David Cameron was Shadow Education Secretary and Andy Murray was outside the world's top 400 - it didn't look like much. Yet another panel show, and an unprepossessing mix of Have I Got News for You and Whose Line Is It Anyway? to boot - surely it wouldn't go on to be one of TV comedy's most reliable ratings bankers?

Well, it did - and now it's back for a triumphant 14th series, with Dara O Briain still in charge and a roster of strong comics, old and new: Katherine Ryan, James Acaster, Matt Forde and Josh Widdicombe join hoary regulars Hugh Dennis and Andy Parsons.

Radio Times review

The sixth year of Channel 4's admirable fundraising drive for Great Ormond Street Hospital. If you're an avid and knowledgeable fan of any of these acts, this might not be the best environment in which to see them, since there are an awful lot to get through. But to take the temperature of live comedy right now and see who's at the top of their game or on the up, it's ideal.

The really big names are led by Alan Carr, Michael McIntyre and Jack Dee, with Aisling Bea, Sara Pascoe and Katherine Ryan among the others to look out for. Also on the bill is sharp, politically astute South African stand-up Trevor Noah, getting in a UK gig while he can before he takes over the hallowed Daily Show in the US.

One of the all-time great kids' shows returns for series six, adjusting to the loss of the original cast by organising itself into special episodes focusing on a single historical figure. Tom Rosenthal is the perfect choice to play crap-haired milquetoast Alfred the Great, thrust on to the throne after the deaths of all four of his elder brothers. He fights a constant battle against both the Vikings and haemorrhoids, and we learn that he didn't burn any cakes and that the Scandinavians brought sarcasm to England.

Back to 2006 for the first episode of Sharon Horgan and Dennis Kelly's sitcom about three filthy wastrels from Penge. Donna (Horgan), drifting towards marriage with rancid manchild Karl (Cavan Clerkin), realises on her hen night that she's got a lot of aimless partying still to do with her pals (Tanya Franks and Rebekah Staton). The extent to which female characters get all the funny lines by revealing their rotten souls would still feel groundbreaking today. And this opener is flab-free: one killer scene after another.

It's the week after the week after the election: potentially a news dead zone. How will this perky puppet-based satire cope, with its excellent Miliband and Clegg impersonations presumably now mothballed? David Cameron's promised first 100 days of pain should already be taking shape, although that would mean material more darkly political than the personal lampoons this show thrives on. Perhaps he'll be selfconsciously fluffing his tiny majority. If not, Newzoids always has its ace songs to fall back on. Last in the series.

It's going to take more than a conceptual BBC Three comedy to faze Deborah Meaden. Squinting at DI Sleet (Tom Davis) like he's a particularly careless inventor, the Dragon soon overcomes both the show's premise and a colossal height difference to take control. Who lethally doctored Lady Gaga's soup? As the investigation charges on, Sleet shouts at Boris Johnson, rubs himself against Cheryl Fernandez-Versini and nearly goes all the way with a half-dead Nicki Minaj. Meaden plays her disdain brilliantly straight.

Al Murray's spoof candidacy in South Thanet may have gone a bit quiet after the campaign launch and the cash-in book, but that was because the Pub Landlord was out pounding the streets. This documentary follows Murray throughout his effort to comically nobble Ukip leader Nigel Farage: did the two colossal patriots face each other over a warm, brown, great British pint? We're promised run-ins with candidates and voters, which ought to benefit from Murray's skill at sparring unscripted with punters.