Jane Anderson (II)

Just seeing the title will be enough for true fans of Ed Reardon. They need not read on. Their favourite show has returned. But for those who've never encountered the cynicism, dry asides and borderline-psychotic vitriol of Mr Reardon, now is the time to get acquainted.

Reardon is the comic creation of Andrew Nickolds and Christopher Douglas (who plays him) and as the ninth series opens our hero is down on his luck - again. The gas and electricity have been switched off, he doesn't have a penny to his name and his fingers are too big to type on the minuscule keypad of his phone - "Sunday" comes out as "dimfat", a result that will resonate with many adult readers.

And so he turns to his now ex-girlfriend Fiona (played by Jenny Agutter), arriving at her house in a state of total self-abasement, which lasts as long as it takes for her to offer him some lunch. She agrees to consider taking him back if he gets a proper job and this is where his old rival Jaz Milvane (Philip Jackson) comes to the rescue.

There's money to be made from Harry Potter and though Ed declares he'd rather hang himself with a Hogwarts' scarf than contribute any more money to JK Rowling, he's soon dressing up as a porter at King's Cross station. Next he's persuading Japanese students to stuff £20 notes into his satchel before they "board" the Hogwarts Express.

This is not just funny, it's comic genius.

The magazine show includes a special week of broadcasts of Junior Just a Minute. Nicholas Parsons is a kindly, paternal host, but please don't expect the same heights of humour as Paul Merton and Graham Norton.

Radio Times review

As with all comic sketch shows, the things that make you laugh are entirely down to personal taste. The frequent returns to the World Ham Shouting Championships did nothing for me, although I appreciate the skill in mimicking sports commentary styles. The vision of Gary Lineker constantly following an innocent couple and peeing on their car, however, had me howling. The choice, as they say, is yours.

If this is your first encounter with this returning comedy series, the premise is simple but brilliant. The advertising-executive-cum-author Ian Leslie rifles through the lesser-known "documents" - think old newspaper articles or company correspondence - that reveal the abysmal first literary attempts of some of our best-known modern writers.

A preview was not available as we went to press, but previous forays have included some telling examples, including one from the customer relations department of a US airline where Hunter S Thompson had a temporary job, and another from Jilly Cooper's brief stint as a war reporter...

It is rare for me to recommend a programme that I have not been able to listen to but this new series strikes me as a risk worth taking. Why? Because it stars Mathew Horne (Gavin & Stacey), whose comic acting I greatly admire, and it is produced by Katie Tyrrell, who has Just a Minute and Clare in the Community among her many Radio 4 production credits.

The idea sounds strong too: Horne plays Stuart, a man recently made redundant by the Job Centre who finds himself in the invidious position of having to queue up with his former clients to be interviewed by his former colleagues. Watch this space...

John Finnemore, writer and star of the winsome comedy Cabin Pressure, returns with his third sketch show series. This time he even points his satirical guns at Radio 4. If it wasn't for the fact that I know this was recorded before a recent 15-Minute serial was aired, I'd have thought his sketch on dire radio drama to be an accurate but rather cruel portrayal of How to Have a Perfect Marriage.

This must be a series first - a diary written by someone when they were 21. A good excuse is proffered, though, for this programme's subject - Ken Livingstone - only ever kept the one diary. This occurred in 1966 when he and a friend set out to hitch across the Sahara. Oh, the optimism of youth!

When they arrived in Africa it soon became evident that civil wars and hatred of the British meant that they were going to have to take a different route. I would have been happy to listen to Ken - without interruptions from host Rufus Hound - simply reading from his diary, which is dry in wit and full of fantastic tales.

From a near-death experience when Livingstone did finally get to the desert to sharing a hotel room with an ostrich he named Horace, this is Ken as you've never encountered him before.

One of our finest cricketers, Dave Podmore (Test batting average: four) is bereft. His beloved dog Saxon is dead. And, as befits a great canine and a great master, only the most lavish of funeral ceremonies will do.

Fans of the Pod will smell the stench of oncoming disaster at this point - anything involving Dave either spending or trying to earn money is doomed. This time the cost of hiring Gareth Malone to lead the choir has hit him hard. Could glamorous wife Jackie not help him? She's too busy in the Emirates, setting up her vajazzle franchise. And so Pod must fall back on his cricketing knowledge to earn some money. Who better than he to represent England at the Ashes press conference . . ?

Chris Douglas, Andrew Nickolds and Nick Newman's writing remains as sharp as any Poms vs Aussie rivalry. Best Pod line at the press conference? "If it wasn't for Ant and Dec, no one would have heard of Australia."

Thom Tuck is the perfect host for a comedy sketch series that features only new acts. As part of The Penny Dreadfuls, whose work Radio 4 listeners might know best for their historical comedy dramas on Guy Fawkes and the French Revolution, he's experienced in teamwork and performing furiously fast sketches.

But as a frontman he is encouraging, supportive and gets the audience on side for the work of artists new to radio. It's good to hear fresh talent and some of the scenarios work really well: I particularly enjoyed the Beta Males with their protest sketch: "What do we want?" "Hearing aids." "When do we want them?" Silence.

But if I had to select one act to listen to again it would be Jonny and the Baptists, whose comedy blues songs segue happily from social observation to the surreal.

As any JAM fan will tell you, it's not often that a panellist speaks for the whole minute, uninterrupted, without deviation, hesitation or repetition, but that's exactly what Graham Norton does here. Admittedly, he does have a distinct advantage with his subject matter - it's the Eurovision Song Contest - but even so, it's a rare enough event to inspire a warm and spontaneous round of applause from the audience.

And Nicholas Parsons takes some gentle ribbing from Paul Merton when he manages to work his forename into a round entitled "Fur coat and no knickers" - "You've been waiting 45 series to use that gag," says Merton.