James Corden

James Corden confirmed as 2014 Brit award hosts

James Corden has been confirmed as host of the 2014 Brit Awards - but it will be his last event as presenter.

The final part of Mathew Baynton and James Corden's action-movie-spoof-com begins with the fugitive pair backed into a corner, an unlikely Hollywood plot device their only hope of escape. But escape they do, just as they grasp that the (not entirely intelligible) plot they're caught up in is linked to Berkshire Country Council, the boys' hitherto dullsville workplace. The friction between comedy and thriller has produced sparks of brilliance in this series, mainly in the magnificent incongruity of Corden's lovable loser Phil.

Our accidental all-action spy heroes Sam and Phil leap into some high-octane Bond-age scrapes tonight as, all too soon, we reach the end of the road for this excellent dramatic comedy.

It's been a deft mesh of the familiar concerns of everyday life with the preposterously epic, played with utter conviction by James Corden and Mathew Baynton.

But before the punchy final showdown, the pair have to get themselves out of their tricky Thelma & Louise-style cliffhanger...

Congratulations to James Corden and Mat Baynton for inventing a whole new TV genre, the thriller-com.

At the end of last week's episode their hapless duo Sam and Phil were surrounded by heavily armed MI6 agents on the ground and in the air.

Their escape looked impossible - and after tonight's opening you might still not be convinced as to how they manage to elude capture for another half-hour.

No matter. The concluding triumph tonight has so much intense physical comedy it could be a workout video.

The final episode of Mat Baynton and James Corden's irresistible comedy thriller doesn't deliver what you hope it will. It goes much further than that. There's payoff after air-punching pay-off as the various threads of the story swiftly come together, with the sort of swagger you can't get away with unless you've been solidly entertaining for the previous five episodes.

But the increasingly heroic stooges Sam and Phil have been: chasing every red herring and unlikely plot twist just as we have, with their everyman meekness and uncertain friendship constantly threatening to spoil their efforts to do the right thing against the odds. As we rejoin the action, they merely have to escape from a circle of gun-toting special agents, before exposing a huge political conspiracy they can't prove exists. You wouldn't bet against them.

Have you been watching ... The Wrong Mans?

Will James Corden and Mathew Baynton survive their wickedly funny crime caper involving Russian gangsters, MI5 and the Berkshire town planning office?

Everyone loves sparks flying on the chatshow circus and the best chance of a meltdown tonight looks likely to come from the wayward Britney Spears as she drops by for a chinwag with Alan Carr.

Will he ask her opinion on twerking Miley Cyrus? Also making merry with Carr are Olympic hero Mo Farah and actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt, plus music from Jake Bugg, while Graham Norton has landed Paul McCartney, Natalie Portman, Chris Hemsworth, James Corden and Katy Perry.

As usual, Norton's bookers have activated their tractor beam to draw in the best celebrities. For a start, Paul McCartney is on the couch! Our greatest living songwriter (discuss) will talk about his new album, helpfully entitled New, and give us a sample - most likely the Beatles-y title track, which sounds like a breezy relative of Got to Get You into My Life.

At the other end of the pop spectrum is Katy Perry - she has a new album out soon. And let's not forget the actors: Natalie Portman talks about her role in Thor sequel, The Dark World and if that wasn't enough star wattage, James Corden drops by.

Today's fan poll: if you had to choose between James Corden and Mathew Baynton being mistaken for a rent boy and forced to perform a boy dance for the pleasure of drunken Russian gangsters, who would you plump for?

Right answer. It was Baynton's Sam, the little of this little and large combo, who lost a last remaining shred of dignity as The Wrong Mans (BBC Two) cranked up the thrilling element of its comedy-thriller plot.

It was just one memorable moment in an episode that also involved Corden getting mugged by an airbag. Visual comedy doesn't often do it for me but The Wrong Mans gets it spot on.

Described memorably as 'a scrawny hobbit and a male Clare Balding' - now you come to mention it - Baynton and Corden have fast developed into a winning double act, the latter resisting the temptation and letting Baynton's befuddled straight man set the tone. Thus far, The Wrong Mans is getting it totally right.

Sitcoms usually reset to zero at the end of every episode, but this is not a sitcom. Every episode of The Wrong Mans sends our antsy heroes Sam and Phil several miles further away from normality. The danger is that the twisting storyline will strangle the comedy - and if this episode had an inch more plot, it'd have too much plot and not enough jokes. But it works because we're never too far from a big, silly visual gag or just a nice bit of interplay between creators Mat Baynton (Sam) and James Corden (the bolder but stupider Phil) - and beneath the pratfalling, the story has been carefully constructed.

Most of this episode takes place at an eastern European gangster's party, where Sam must dance for his life.