Jim Henson

Jim Henson's Hampstead home given blue plaque

A blue plaque has been installed at the former home of the Muppets creator Jim Henson.

Three episodes in, and this new enterprise from the Horrible Histories team continues to work some excellent gags into its Jim Henson-esque interplay between humans and puppets. In the vein of Goodnight Sweetheart (filmed just off Columbia Road flower market, portal fans), modern mum Marsha bounces between her home life and the titular fantasy world.

This week, she encounters an order of religious monks who cannot tell lies. Despite the puppetry and their CBBC roots, the Yonderland players smuggle in adult gags everywhere, from some slightly obvious truths about estate agents to more surreal riffs on the origins of Little Chef restaurants. Best of all, it's affectionate cute and thoroughly loveable. The opposite of estate agents, then.

Not much sign of a sophomore slump for the Horrible Histories team, as they rekindle the endearing daftness of their crossover CBBC hit, only without having to adhere to stuff like, y'know, actual facts.

Exhausted working mum Debbie (Martha Howe-Douglas) discovers an elf in her kitchen cupboard and, with it, a portal into Yonderland and an escape from domestic drudgery. And lo, she enters a fantasy world peopled by dissolute wizards, dull-witted treemen and a bickering council of elders (HH regulars Mat Baynton, Simon Farnaby et al) who, handily, have a few quests that need completing.

Borrowing liberally from Jim Henson in both its tone and heavy use of puppets, Yonderland showcases a crack comic ensemble brimming with confidence. Indeed, the performances are generally stronger and more consistent than the writing, but there's no shortage of chuckles, and it gains momentum over the course of this opening double bill. And ultimately, such gleeful silliness is always to be encouraged.

The dread word 'madcap' fell out of fashion decades ago, but virtually defines BBC1's current Saturday night line-up: That Puppet Game Show plus I Love My Country equals primetime nadir. That Puppet Game Show is by no means as hateful as I Love My Country. It's just pitiable, which somehow makes it worse.

The gameshow element, in which celebs ('everybody's sweetheart' Katherine Jenkins and 'king of TV' Jonathan Ross) do silly things for charity under the watchful eye of wacky felt-skinned host Dougie Colon, is bad enough. But the sketches interspersed among the games, following events 'behind the scenes' as the producers decide to sack one of the team, are simply excruciating in their naked attempt - and abject failure - to recapture the subversion and anarchy of The Muppet Show. No surprise that Jim Henson's son is involved but, on this evidence, a chip off the old block he is not. This makes Don't Scare the Hare look like Isles of Wonder.

Move over Miss Piggy: New 'Muppets' take over BBC1

The seeds of the series lie in Puppet Up!, an improvised 2006 Edinburgh Festival show staged by Brian Henson, who inherited the puppeteering business from his father Jim Henson, who died in 1990.