Jamie Oliver

Off Menu Podcast With Ed Gamble & James Acaster: the best episodes

Comedians Ed Gamble and James Acaster on the Off Menu podcast are especially good company because they're funny gluttons.

Preview - The Last Leg: Elegtion Special

To quote Edmund Blackadder: "The hustings are over, the bunting is down, the mad hysteria is at an end. After the chaos of a general election, we can return to normal."

Channel 4 seems to be positioning Alan Carr's Happy Hour as a challenger to Norton's Friday-evening chokehold. But the Chatty Man still has a way to go to match Norton's cheek and charm. Norton commands a higher calibre of guest, too; tonight, A-listers Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt will be discussing their imminent sci-fi film, Passengers, and, just possibly, recent events in their home country. Emeli Sandé brings the tunes.

Radio Times review

Ross can still trade blows with Graham Norton: the night after the BBC One host had Carrie Fisher on his sofa, Wossy has another Star Wars star, Harrison Ford, on his. That's the cinema event of the season covered. As for TV, David Walliams has, via the circuitous route of writing books that lend themselves to sparkly dramatisations, become a festive fixture. He's here to chat about Billionaire Boy, which forms part of BBC One's heavyweight schedule on New Year's Day.

But, quick! Hide the jellied fruits! Jamie Oliver, whose campaign against excess sugar is gathering speed, is on the bill, too. He will, however, surely say a little indulgence is OK. Jess Glynne provides the music.

Radio Times review

Michael Keaton has never really found a movie role to equal that of Batman, so it's almost a case of art imitating life in his new film Birdman. In it he plays an actor who found fame playing a superhero, but who subsequently hasn't been taken seriously by critics or audiences.

Although Keaton understandably denies any comparison between this role and his experiences as the Dark Knight, we can expect the conversation to wade into the deep waters of existential crises and deconstruction of the ego. No doubt lightening the mood are Graham's other guests: Jamie Oliver and One Direction, who'll be performing their new single Night Changes.

Kerry's List, the second series of Kerry Godliman's affable Radio 4 comedy, uses an outside production house [rather than the BBC], and I'm glad to hear it. Godliman's funniness is in her and her everyday life; it would be awful if she were made to be proper. Last week, her impression of Jamie Oliver ("Kick it in the nuts with a bag of turmeric!") made me really laugh; as did her ranting about wanting to have a mad house party to her husband, when he just wanted her to pass him a spanner so he could mend the washing machine.

Each show is based around Godliman's to-do list for the week, which might include things such as "organise photos, sharpen pencils, move house... Superglue, catflap, grout". These lists are not only familiar to all of us, they provide a structure to each show; a neat structure, but flexible enough to include flashbacks and phone-calls and scenes with short-sighted opticians as well as a bit of Godliman's stand-up. She has some great lines ("Isn't 'we need more space' just one of those things people say when they can't be arsed to tidy up?") and her on-air character doesn't feel too far away from her real character, which gives the whole show a natural, naturally funny air. I like it a lot.

Don't tell Wossy (or Graham Norton, for that matter), but chat shows make the perfect accompaniment to late-night wrapping. If only this show aired before Christmas Day, then you could have watched the guests you like, and concentrated on the tricky shapes during the ones you don't.

Tonight's guests are John Bishop, whose autobiography you might have been wrapping, Jamie Oliver, whose gravy you might currently be digesting, and Ray Winstone, whose appearance in Sky's family drama Moonfleet you may squint at tonight, wondering why he's not swearing while hitting someone in the face.

Sir David Attenborough completes the Christmas line-up, and hopefully he'll be asked about his most offbeat hit, Tweet of the Day, which over Christmas will briefly flood Radio 4's Today Programme with glorious birdsong.

It's the motor-mouthed host's last show this year and a bumper cast squeezes onto his banquette of banter for the occasion. Ross welcomes arena-filling stand-up Michael McIntyre, actresses Sheridan Smith and Sienna Miller, plus Paralympic gold medallists Ellie Simmonds and Jonnie Peacock. Chef Jamie Oliver cooks festive food, while there's music from Charlotte Church and clowning from Broadway-wowing Russian troupe Slava's Snow Show.

In a different setting, it's easy to imagine Rob Brydon being persuasive, teasing the most difficult and troubling of secrets away from celeb bosoms.

A lively half-hour chat show is not the place for that, however. So as it returns for a third series, Rob contents himself with comedy talk from Michael McIntyre and festival talk with Alex James, who's about to run a food and music event with Jamie Oliver on his Oxfordshire estate. Lovers of chat-show bingo should fill their game cards with the words "Blur", "farm" and "cheese".

Music comes from the racing car-loving Scottish singer Amy Macdonald.

It's Lady Gaga tonight, but what will she wear? On Ross's BBC1 show she wore a 1930s telephone as a hat, while with Graham Norton she wore a kind of ghost's wedding dress. But it's not all surface: Gaga can be frank, charming and funny if she's in the mood, and Ross is a big fan. More than making up the numbers are Jamie Oliver and Lee Evans.