Jack Seale

A strange solo outing for Guy Jenkin, co-writer of Ballot Monkeys. On an RAF base in the British countryside, a squadron who used to fly bombers in Afghanistan now sit controlling drones. In this, er, pilot episode, a hit on a high-profile jihadi turns bad, and it all goes a bit Thick of It as the details leak out. Can comedy flow from such a dark and airless subject? Vincent Franklin, Rufus Jones and a particularly fine Hugh Skinner - a dashing toff here, instead of his dim one in W1A - lead what proves to be a hopeless mission.

To a suburban semi, where Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith have gone a bit Mike Leigh. It's Nana's birthday party, thrown by Angela (Claire Skinner), the more successful of her two daughters. Into a house kept pristine by Angela's crippling OCD blows bitter dipsomaniac Carol (Lorraine Ashbourne). Pemberton and Shearsmith are the golf-sweatered husbands waging a cold war via practical jokes. As one prank blows up a mass of secrets, the script slides effortlessly from funny to dark to desperately sad.

Radio Times review

Can TV's best topical comedy keep that mantle in the midst of election fever? It's a challenge, even for the excellent Adam Hills and his two sidekicks, Alex Brooker and Josh Widdicombe.

Brooker pre-empted the worst excesses of the race for Downing Street earlier this year by conducting a genuinely enlightening interview with Nick Clegg, during which any answer deemed to be "bulls**t" was met with a klaxon. It's safe to say that despite Brooker's efforts, plenty of the smelly stuff has crept into the campaign on all sides as 7 May has drawn closer. The trio's signature brand of satire without cynicism could be just what we need.

In an election where the Tories, to use Lynton Crosby's terminology, keep dropping dead cats on to the table, here come the creators of Drop The Dead Donkey. As they did with their 1990s news-com, Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin have written scripts with gaps, to be filled at the last minute with oven-hot satire. The action flips between various shades of panic on board the Labour, Conservative, Lib Dem and Ukip battle buses. A strong cast is led by Ben Miller, Sarah Hadland and the lord high chancellor of topical zingers, Hugh Dennis.

Radio Times review

Variety is dead, apart from the several annual TV spectaculars that show it isn't. This one is fronted by cool people's least favourite stand-up, the superb Michael McIntyre, and takes place in a proper West End theatre.

Other comics on the bill include Eddie Izzard, Bill Bailey and, intriguingly given that she's no longer known for solo stage work, Catherine Tate. There's music from US star Sia and our very own Ella Henderson, and some magic, too: Mat Franco, who is getting people talking in the States, makes his UK debut.

The tricky business of making bomb disposal in Afghanistan funny gets easier when there's specific strife close to the characters. This week, one of their number takes a hit, leaving the rest to stew in their own feelings and fears while they wait for good or terrible news. Life goes on, though: the questions for the pub quiz still need to be stolen from the Lt Col's office. You'd like the pent-up emotion to punch through the joshing bravado more strongly, but for the army sitcom's fans, this is a biggie.

Radio Times review

Vic, Bob and Beef are entering a danceathon in Julie's bistro. They've got their killer moves worked out. There's the one where Vic pretends to be Richard III extracting sardines from a pantry, and the one where Bob throws wrens towards Saturn. But then Vic and Beef set about breaking each other's legs...

The plot doesn't matter, of course. Slightly more structured as Fools now is - Bob goes to the bistro "to move the story on" - we're here to be sprayed with a thousand stupid ideas. Fine bits of comic business include Vic's impossible crotch-grabbing arm, and Julie (Morgana Robinson) claiming to have done the choreography for Ross Kemp's Gangs of Namibia.

Pompidou: why the critics are wrong

Disappointing audiences and a critical bashing have made Pompidou look like a failure. But this difficult, admirable experiment deserves better.

Radio Times review

There's no comedy on TV at the moment like this, a remarkable comeback effort by Matt Lucas. There have, however, been plenty like it in years gone by: the quickest way to describe it would be The Fast Show's Rowley Birkin QC starring in a remake of Mr Bean, with other influences stretching further back to European mime and even Hanna-Barbera cartoons.

Lucas is a crass toff who, judging by the fact that he lives in a caravan and spends this entire episode foraging for food, has fallen on hard times. He and his butler Hove (Alex MacQueen) try fishing and hunting but end up in hospital, a caper that at no stage involves intelligible dialogue.

Everyone gibbers expressively instead, in a family goof-fest where a good half of the gags are gems.

Radio Times review

Faced with charming, plucky pensioners mucking about, we will forgive a lot. It's human nature. The members of the public duped by mischievous codgers in this hidden-camera pranks show, for instance, generally come away with their day brightened. And for us at home, it's hard to cling onto that spoilsport feeling that the hokey set-ups should have made it screamingly obvious that the old-timers were actors.

Even the most unlikely scenarios, such as an elderly couple approaching two young lovers on Brighton beach and immediately announcing that they need someone to watch them rehearse a wedding dance, end in life-affirming smiles all round.