Jane Thynne

Week in Radio: When a week in politics is beyond parody

Includes coverage of Rory Bremner's International Satirists, Sarah Millican's Support Group, and People in Cars.

The first hints came in the new slate of comedy shows unveiled last week, which revealed that Rory Bremner has been wooed over to Radio 4 for a series called Rory Bremner's International Satirists. Bremner always delivers, so this series, which takes a look at satire across the world, is a promising start.

Sarah Millican, who won the Best Newcomer award in Edinburgh in 2008, is a quirky comedian with a sweet Geordie accent and a touch of Mrs Merton about her. Her tours are a sell-out and this show, in which she plays Sarah, a life counsellor and modern-day agony aunt, certainly featured gales of laughter from a lifelike audience. The format revolves around discussing ordinary people's problems, such as "dating outside of your class" or how to cope living alone. One woman explained how she defended herself at night. "I've got a bat, down the side of my bed. A policeman said I could keep it there if it didn't look like a weapon, so I've got a ball there too." To me, this show epitomised the curate's egg that is BBC radio comedy. Some of the observations are witty and acute, such as Millican's technique for assessing whether a man's belly shape means he's a nightmare or a catch. "Front-loaded bellies that look a bit pregnant mean it's the drink, more rounded bellies mean he can cook." But other parts, such as when fictional characters were asked to explain what "posh" people do, were crass, lame and just not intelligent enough for the Radio 4 audience, accustomed to rapier-swift comedy of the calibre of Ed Reardon and I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue.

The comedy in Simon Brett's People in Cars, directed by Peter Kavanagh, was also gentle, but Brett is a veteran and knows his audience well. The trilogy started with a man who has just performed a raid on a building society hijacking a car driven by a mother and her teenage son. This implausible set-up worked because Samantha Bond played divorcée Gilly with exactly the right blend of withering sarcasm and simmering anger. "God, you make me furious!" she tells the hijacker. "You burst into my car, burst into my life, threaten my son and then you start ordering me around just like my husband did, just like every other man in my life did!" Very soon, Nigel, the hijacker, realises there is something far more menacing than a replica pistol, and that is a middle-aged mum.

In Ray Connolly's play a priest and a nun, Michael and Eleanor, fall in love and marry. Unfortunately, all does not go swimmingly, as you might have predicted given that they choose to honeymoon in north Devon in February. The first problem is the Valentine's Day upgrade emperor-sized four- poster and whirlpool bath. "But why's it made for two?" wonders the ex-nun, innocently. Then there's bedtime. "An early night?" asks Eleanor, as though being asked to stroke a tarantula. An excruciating Chesil Beach-style encounter follows. He wears new blue pyjamas, they kneel to pray. Needless to say, they skip the sex. This was billed as a romantic comedy, though there weren't actually any laughs as far as I could see and quite a lot of it made me squirm. But that's the thing about BBC radio. You pays your £2 a month (which is radio's proportion of the licence fee) and you takes your choice.

Chris Addison, the comedian who plays the weedy Ollie Reeder in The Thick of It, has been given his own topical news show on Five Live, 7 Day Sunday.

As usual, there is a certain amount of "category error" in this choice. As Ollie in The Thick of It, Addison is hilariously funny, but this is because his lines are written by the comic genius Armando Iannucci. On 7 Day Sunday, however, Addison is writing his own lines, assisted by a studio gang who would laugh at a pig's bladder on a stick. On The Thick of It there is snappy dialogue at a thousand miles an hour, but if you talk like that on radio without enough jokes or substance then the listener's mind skitters all over the place trying to concentrate, before giving up. The show's brief was to "pull apart the week's big news stories", but in the event the only news covered was snow. Weirdly for someone who made his name in a political satire there wasn't any. Why not? The Gordon Brown coup should have provided acres of material, but it took ages to get round to, and then got a paltry two minutes.

As with all the other new shows, I feel strongly that one should not judge on the basis of a debut. Addison is witty and will certainly improve when he starts to take things a little slower. But unless he cracks down on the nervous giggling, his team will still sound like they're stuck in a small lift, supplied with nitrous oxide instead of oxygen.

In this sixth series Ed has fallen so far as to be living in sheltered housing, courtesy of a charity for the financially distressed, having forsaken what he describes as "the life of unmitigated misery, disappointment, abuse and sheer grinding poverty" that is hack writing. Meanwhile, his arch rival Jas Milvain is having the last ever South Bank Show devoted to him, for which resentful Ed will be interviewed as the "grit in the oyster". It's hard to enthuse about this series without sounding like one of those people who bang on about Gavin and Stacey until you are absolutely determined never to watch it, but suffice to say the writing is at the highest end of radio comedy. Christopher Douglas is perfectly incarnated as his creation and Barunka O'Shaughnessy brilliant as Ping, the sloaney assistant. The allusions to George Gissing's 1891 novel New Grub Street, with its tragic writer hero Edwin Reardon, and ambitious cynic, Jasper Milvain, reassures hack writers everywhere that things never really change. And at a time of relentless change, a bit of permanence has to be a good thing.

Radio Review: Chris Addison & Ed Reardon

Addison needs the genius of Armando, whilst in Ed Reardon's Week the writing is at the highest end of radio comedy.

News at Bedtime was Ian Hislop and Nick Newman's dazzling satire on current affairs culture, featuring twin presenters John Tweedledum (played by Jack Dee) and Jim Tweedledee (Peter Capaldi) broadcasting from Nurseryland. You wouldn't need to be a Today aficionado to find this series a delight. There was the crooked man defending himself against allegations of corruption: "It's not a crooked sixpence John. I found it next to a stile. It's perfectly acceptable for me to claim as an allowance." The Grand Old Duke of York was on defending his military action - "You launched an ill-thought out, ill-conceived and legally dubious assault on the hill". There was the Daily Fairygraph, owned by the Brothers Grimm, and Jonathan Porridge from Beanpeace protesting against Jack's genetically modified beanstalk. All of it was pitch perfect, totally inventive and very funny.

By chance, John Humphrys asking "Would you like a turn?" featured as one of the Questions That Are Never Asked on the new series of I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue. The choice of Jack Dee to take over from the lamented Humphrey Lyttleton was an inspired one, even if his first joke about Jacqui Smith's husband destroying her career "single-handed" did sound a lot like The News Quiz. Fortunately, with the help of panellists like Barry Cryer and Graeme Garden, the programme's unique flavour remains. Like Wogan's world, the "antidote to panel games" depends a lot on the surreal, the in-joke, and the trick of being risqué without being offensive. New games like Pensioners Film Club ("Death in Fenwicks" "The Postman Always Has to Knock Twice") mixed with old favourites like One Song to the Tune of Another. The sound of Rob Brydon singing the words of Jim'll Fix it to tune of "Mad World" made me choke with laughter. The problem with in-jokes though, is that people get them too quickly. At one point Jack Dee had to issue the howling audience with a plaintive reprimand. "I have got punch lines... please wait."