Jane Anderson (II)

My favourite sitcom returns for a two-part special, inspired by the unavoidable-and-almost-upon-us London Olympics.

Satan (the devilishly good Andy Hamilton) has seen it all before, ever since 776 BC to be precise, and he's not impressed. Fellow inmate Edith (Annette Crosbie), the historian who apparently committed suicide while watching Midsomer Murders, is delighted by the prospect. Satan has no choice but to correct her rose-tinted view and carts her off to meet the Ancient Greek Olympics Committee. They are all in hell, and we soon understand why. (Let's hope the same fate does not await Sebastian Coe.)

Next week's edition returns the wretched underworld losers to 2012. Satan agrees to take Edith to the London Olympics, but it's more a case of going for Gehenna than for gold.

When it comes to spoof documentaries nothing will ever top Rob Reiner's This Is Spinal Tap. But the brother-and-sister writing-and-acting team of Rebecca and Jeremy Front have come pretty close with this superb observational comedy series.

Each stand-alone drama has Jeremy spending 24 hours with a woman of note, who also happens to be a total nightmare. Rebecca, of course, plays them all and they range from a TV psychic to a working-class opera diva, via a drunken war photographer, an evil-genius geneticist and a brash, TV-friendly hack and author.

Jeremy is joined in each "documentary" by real experts who attempt to throw light upon the ghastly woman in question. Robert Winston, Janet Street-Porter, psychologist Richard Wiseman and 60s photographer David Steen all turn in quality performances, but the stand-out new drama talent for me for is Jeremy Paxman.

He attempts to get a quip-free straight answer out of the abhorrent journalist Lucy Winterton but gives up when she wears him down with her, "I put the pun into pundit" responses. This is not just good, it's excellent and shows that quality writing can transform radio comedy into something that's laugh-out-loud funny.

It's impossible to give a sitcom a decent review until it has bedded in. Imagine seeing the slapstick antics of Basil Fawlty or the bitter musings of Edmund Blackadder for the first time. Characters have to grow on us and the first episode walks a tightrope between giving the audience enough information to understand the set-up but not so much that the comedy never gets a chance to shake off the scene-setting.

David Schneider has written and stars in this sitcom about an uptight registrar. His character reminded me of Gordon Brittas (The Brittas Empire) - well-meaning, decent-hearted but utterly incompetent, and all of his staff realise this. I often smiled, never laughed out loud, but am willing to give it a fair chance.

Radio Times review

Some sequels or re-imaginings should never have been allowed - Speed 2 and the Gus Van Sant Psycho remake spring to mind. I am happy to report that this follow-on from where Kind Hearts and Coronets ended, with the infamous mass murderer's bastard baby daughter picking up where her father left off, is an absolute delight.

It does not attempt to replicate the classic comedy's unique style, merely borrows the idea of killing off all the members of the ghastly Gascoyne family who stand in the way of a mighty inheritance. Natalie Walter gets the easy role as the illegitimate child with a murderous chip on her shoulder.

But who dares to play the whole of the Gascoyne family, the roles that Alec Guinness so famously made his own, eight times over, in the film? A man of many voices - Alistair McGowan. And he is, quite simply, brilliant.

A thoroughly charming, warm-hearted comedy about the relationship that formed on the set of Dad's Army between John Le Mesurier and Arthur Lowe. They were like chalk and cheese, personally and politically, but bonded in what would remain a lifelong friendship.

Ed Reardon - celebrated creator of an episode of Tenko, ghostwriter for z-list celebrities and, sometimes, their pets - is back, and this time he's happy. So happy, in fact, that his facial muscles have difficulty in adjusting to this new emotional experience.

Reardon fans, who include RT's very own Alison Graham and Newsnight's Jeremy Paxman, need not fear that his inner rage at the injustices of modern life or, more specifically, his life has been dampened. He begins by railing against the happy young women they place on the front of broadsheet newspapers who have just passed their GCSEs with flying colours. Why can't they show abject failures, he wants to know? And why does even the sport section of said papers have to contain a wry look at the world by David Mitchell? Why not just give him his own damn section and have done with it?

Life has certainly improved for Ed since he took up with 1960s model Fiona (played by Jenny Agutter) - she's going to fly him on an all-expenses-paid trip to Paris - but can this spate of happiness last? No, of course not. An attempt to get his passport renewed ends in the squalid disaster we have come to expect from genius writers Andrew Nickolds and Christopher Middleton. Who'd have thought a company called Merkury Kouriers could invoke such disdain?

The comedic lies invented by the panellists to win points are good, but the unbelievable truths are even better. Did you know, for example, that George Clooney used to be an insurance salesman and that Oliver Cromwell loved a practical joke?

As fans of Count Arthur Strong already know, he is just as able to get along with the bottom feeders of society (his friends) as he is the upper escalopes (the rich and famous). Back from a typically disastrous sojourn in Spain and a plane journey marred by an unpleasant toilet incident, Arthur is delighted to find an invitation awaiting him at home to see if he is suitable for membership of the Round Table. The Round Table! That's only one step away from the Perry Masons or Morons. "You could be talking to the future Chief Moron," declares the Count. A fittingly befuddled end to this sublime series.

I have one important moan to make about this otherwise very jolly pilot panel show in which celebrity guests are challenged on their soap knowledge: WHERE ARE THE ARCHERS? It's EastEnders this and Coronation Street that. Even Neighbours and Casualty get their time in the quizzing limelight. If this makes it beyond a pilot into a series - and it does deserve to - let's have some brain-scrambling Ambridge questions in there.

If this new panel show sounds familiar it's because host Miles Jupp tested the idea in 2011 in a round called What Does My Dad Know? in Angus Deayton's It's Your Round series on Radio 4.

The brief has now expanded beyond questioning his own father to getting three guests to test someone who supposedly knows them well with questions such as "Who would I rather spend an evening with: George Clooney or God?" Des Lynam picks his agent to answer these Mr and Mrs-style questions. Rachel Johnson opts for a girlfriend she met when they were in their 20s. And Mark Steel puts his faith in his teenage son. One couple does very well indeed, another faces predictable embarrassment and there's a duo who might just as well have never met before.

Listen out for a particularly saucy comment from Mr Lynam - his agent certainly wasn't expecting this when she agreed to appear with him.