Jason Manford

Steve Jones chairs this quiz themed on the TV archives, with Fern Britton and Jason Manford captaining two teams of celebrity guests, whose calibre this week runs to Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen and Pauline Quirke. Unable to decide whether it's edgily hip or comfortably staid, it includes items such as a human beatboxer rendering theme tunes, alongside a straightforward steal of the "What happened next?" bit from A Question of Sport.

For fans who admire the high-wire bravura of stand-up comedy, once again Michael McIntyre introduces an impressive mix of comedians. The line-up includes John Bishop explaining the difficulties of getting rid of a fridge; Sarah Millican on the joys of divorce; Mick Ferry on an unhealthy desire to sleep with all his daughters' friends, and - last but by no means least - the headline act from Jason Manford, who does an inspired riff on his father's terrifying parenting technique. This involved telephoning the Chief Constable of the Greater Manchester Police who would threaten his son with prison. At the age of 7 or 8, Manford was too terrified to realise that the Chief Constable's voice bore an uncanny resemblance to that of his grandfather.

Laughs aplenty as Michael McIntyre and his pals continue their tour around Britain. Dig below the surface of tonight's leg of this stand-up tour - which sees host Michael introduce headliner Jason Manford off 8 Out of 10 Cats at the Manchester Apollo - and you'll find a brilliant pair of comedians rarely seen on TV. Indeed, the routines from John Bishop and Mick Ferry should get you giggling...

If they conducted a national poll to find which panel show the public thought best bridged the gap between Have I Got News For You and Family Fortunes, this would be the hands-down winner.

Host Jimmy Carr returns to deadpan his way through an eighth series of more current affair-based quipping.

The show's traditional opening round to try and guess which headlines have been exercising the public jawbones this week should be pretty easy. And you can bet team captains Sean Lock and Jason Manford have spent the week happily polishing ad-libbed one-liners about Britain's Got Talent, Susan Boyle's meltdown, The Apprentice and the Big Brother launch.

As with HIGNFY, the only flaw in this format is that the panelists then have to patiently EXPLAIN these hot topics to us as though we've just recently touched down from Mars. "She was this woman with bushy eyebrows who lived with her cat in a village in Scotland and then she became the most famous woman in the world and it all went a bit wrong..."

Chipping in with their two-pence worth this week will be Johnny Vegas, Ulrika Jonsson, Jodie Kidd (not known for her rapid-fire humour, but she may surprise us) and Jack Whitehall, who'll be secretly hoping that the nation will be talking of nothing other than what a shame it is he won't be hosting Big Brother's Big Mouth this year.

One of the nice spin-off benefits of Big Brother's return is that this splendid panel game, hosted by Jimmy Carr, also takes up its traditional place alongside it on a Friday night. Rival captains Sean Lock and Jason Manford, plus celeb guests, speculate as to the outcome of various weird surveys.

New series of the topical quiz show - that's so hot C4 would only send us a preview disc to get here on Monday. Presumably because it is so topical it is filmed after it's shown. It's funnier than it has any real right to be, because of Jimmy Carr's well crafted one-liners, Jason Manford's likeable nature and Sean Lock's occasional bursts of genius. The guests tonight are the posh 12-year-old comic Jack Whitehall, who did a nice line in flirting with Ken Livingstone last time he was on and Johnny Vegas, who we saw trawling around a north London bookshop last week looking rather svelte.

Now I like TV as much as the next geek daftie (look, I really do have a Bonekickers DVD boxset, honestly), but even my blood turned to ice when I read about the BBC's new Friday night panel quiz show...

Presenter Steve Jones, spreading his wings beyond T4, will host As Seen on TV (you see what they did there?), a panel game in a Buzzcocks stylee on the subject of, well, TV. The team captains will be outgoing This Morning host Fern Britton and comedian Jason Manford (drafted in from C4's 8 Out of 10 Cats).

Honestly, is that the best they can come up with for a Friday night these days? Really? Wow, Jay Hunt is making some dynamic commissioning decisions in her early days as BBC1 controller. Did nobody, at any point, sit her down and show her an episode of It's Only TV... But I Like It, the Jonathan Ross hosted TV themed panel game show? One can only assume not...

Panel shows, like Buzzcocks, HIGNFY and QI can be good, enjoyable, even subversive television. But the alchemy of getting the right make-up of on-screen talent and format to make it work is a tricky thing to pull off. One bum note and it all goes out of the window.

But whatever the success or otherwise of the finished product, on the surface, As Seen on TV just sounds like lazy, middle of the road television. Surely we deserve better? Or am I expecting too much these days?

I know what I'd like for Christmas - another scandal involving Jonathan Ross so Live At The Apollo can permanently replace his Friday night show. A nice bit of stand-up comedy is a perfect way to start the weekend, and the creative team always seem to get the perfect performer mix (though if I had my way, brilliant Michael McIntyre, who was in the first episode, would be on every single week).

Tonight's host is 8 Out Of 10 Cats stalwart Sean Lock, who shares his genius way of how to have fun with wrong numbers, and also his trick for getting local kids off his car without getting a mouthful of abuse.

He has a good old moan about pizza leaflets, self-service checkouts and confusing pub toilets (we've all been there - at some trendy bar, wondering which squiggle on the door is supposed to represent male and female).

With those rants out of the way, it's time to introduce the main act, the amiable Jason Manford - who just so happens to be his 8 Out Of 10 Cats rival. But that's never mentioned, of course. There'll be no plugging of rival channels here, thank you very much.

Jason Manford Interview

In this interview Jason Manford admits he didn't find Tonightly that funny but would still like a stab at a second series.

Satire! It's great. Except for when it's not, obviously. Then it's rubbish. That Have I Got News For You manages consistently to avoid the potholes routinely occupied by its contemporaries (to wit: crudeness, the triumphs of ego over comedic esprit de corps, Jason Manford, etc) is testament not only to the chemistry between long-serving team captains Ian Hislop and Paul Merton, but to wit so sublime it can turn a one-liner on Gordon Brown's incisors into a dazzling nugget of incontrovertible topical wisdom.

Returning as the show's guest host tonight is This Morning's astonishingly game/foolhardy Fern Britton. Place your bets now on how many seconds will elapse before Paul Merton mentions g*stric b*nds.