Jennifer Saunders

Say what you like about Rob Brydon - and I certainly plan to - but he hosts a brain-ruining celebrity quiz show with aplomb. Those hours spent remaining cheerful while dining opposite Steve Coogan's wet-weekend-in-Ancoats face on The Trip to Italy are certainly paying dividends.

How bad is The Guess List (BBC1)? It's as likely as Michael McIntyre's chatshow to make it to a second series. It makes Would I Lie to You?, Brydon's other quiz show, seem like a work of shattering genius.

That said, I couldn't look away. "How lovely to be this close to a fox and not worry it's going to sniff round your bins," said Brydon introducing his first celebrity guest, Emilia Fox. "I speak for everybody when I say I loved The Vicar of Dibley," he said, introducing Jennifer Saunders. He went on with similar amiable insults to the other usual suspects (Simon Callow, Louis Smith, James Corden), while they kept their smiles mirthlessly frozen. If there isn't yet a Bafta for best rictus in quiz show adversity, it is only a matter of time.

The idea is, five celebrities come up with a plausible answer to a question, and then two contestants have to decide which, if any of those suggestions, is most plausible. For example: "According to a poll, what should old people do three times a week to help them live longer?" "Tango," said Callow, insanely. "Orgasm," said Corden, sensibly. "Exercise," said Smith, boringly. The answer? Oh come on! It's have sex.

Only one of the contestants seemed to have trouble with The Guess List's concept. Naturally, she won. But then she also told us she'd moved from Birmingham to Australia after watching Wanted Down Under, which is the very definition of madness.

Celebrity input seemed so superfluous that the show could readily have been renamed Pointless Celebrities. Here's my question: "Which of the following collective nouns is the odd one out: A) murder of crows; B) whoop of gorillas; C) busyness of ferrets; D) pointlessness of celebrities?" Answer: D) I want to hear more from the other three.

Jennifer Saunders talks about her Bonkers life

Jennifer Saunders is a brilliant writer and queen of the successful double act. On the eve of her visit to Australia, she talks friendship, family, procrastination and her brush with cancer.

The Methuselah-like panel show begins its 47th series, with Jennifer Saunders in the host's seat for the first time. How she's never landed the gig before when the likes of Fern Britton and Jerry Springer have is a mystery. Elsewhere, Pointless chap Richard Osman will put his panel show nous (he's had a hand in creating 8 Out Of 10 Cats and Charlie Brooker vehicle You Have Been Watching) to good use as a guest panellist. It's years past its real peak, but still diverting enough.

Radio Times review

As the big beast of the panel-show genre rouses itself for a 47th series, we know what to expect. Nobody would pretend the show's satirical edge is as sharp as it once was or that the scripted gags supplied to the host aren't sometimes embarrassingly poor (you can often see team captains Ian Hislop and Paul Merton wince in sympathy). But it's still the best place to see the week's news given a going-over and it's good to have it back.

Jennifer Saunders takes the presenter's hot seat for the first time and Richard Osman, who generally raises everyone's game a peg or two, is a guest.

Radio Times review

The first series of these adaptations of PG Wodehouse stories came in for a good kicking from some quarters, which seemed out of proportion considering they were enjoyable bits of candy floss and hardly Broadchurch. But viewers liked them, so here's a second helping, with Timothy Spall once again starring as pin-brained, pig-obsessed toff Lord Emsworth and Jennifer Saunders as his battleaxe of a sister, Connie.

Tim Vine, much missed after his departure from Not Going Out, takes over from Mark Williams as Beach, the clever butler. Harry Enfield guests in the first episode as the claret-nosed Duke of Dunstable, an appalling old buffer with an inexplicable antipathy towards whistling Scotsmen.

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Meet Timothy Spall, Jennifer Saunders, Tim Vine and Celia Imrie, the cast of BBC1's PG Wodehouse comedy Blandings.

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