Jimmy Carr

Recently my son came up to my office with a laptop to show me a clip from what he described as "the world's funniest show". He was referring to Would I Lie to You?. This may or may not surprise you, depending on your understanding of what the average 11-year-old boy finds funny.

Having watched last night's instalment, my own professional opinion (I was recently criticised for having no TV-reviewing qualifications, but I have since started a night course) is that Would I Lie to You? is some way off being the world's funniest show, but is still pretty funny. How the game works is not important. It's been a long time since the rules of any panel show mattered, because there isn't anything at stake - not even pride. This one is basically just an opportunity for comedians to insult each other.

And that's a pretty reliable formula, because even if you don't like a particular comedian (lots of people don't like Jimmy Carr, for example), you'll enjoy the bits where everyone takes the piss out of him. Last night's panel consisted of four funny guys and Terry Christian. And Jamelia, who also isn't funny, except in the sense that she's funnier than Terry Christian. But we can all put that on our CVs.

The highlight for me was the deeply improbable claim that Marcus Brigstocke was once a podium dancer at the Ministry of Sound, during weeks off from his other job working on an oil rig. This turns out to be completely true. "So Flashdance is actually based on your life," said Jimmy Carr. I think that's funny. Sue me.

The best bit this week is David Mitchell's sort-of impression of Jodie Marsh (she's a "glamour model", the one who isn't Jordan). Of course Mitchell is ill-equipped even to approximate Ms Marsh's two famously overblown assets, but he does a very decent career precis of the big-bosomed one's raison d'etre, albeit delivered in his exasperated A-level history teacher's voice. It's pretty much down to captains Mitchell and Lee Mack to keep things going, with some lacklustre guests. Jimmy Carr is impossible to like; Terry Christian is clearly baffled and well aware that he's out of his depth, to the point that you might end up feeling sorry for him; and singer Jamelia yet again inexplicably turns up on a TV panel show. Host Rob Brydon helps the show bounce along as he referees the arguments and interrogations: was Christian interrogated by police hunting a jewel thief? And did comedian Marcus Brigstocke work as a podium dancer?

More of a "joke technician", in his own words, than a humorist, Jimmy Carr has carved himself a niche off to one side of the British comedy scene. Those who appreciate his sharp, ironical style will like this concert, recorded at London's Bloomsbury Theatre last year.

Jimmy Carr's show is not for the easily offended. It's not even for people who are quite difficult to offend. It is, he says, a show for people with no moral compass.

8 Out of 10 Cats, the hit-and-miss quiz show hosted by Jimmy Carr at his most smugly slappable, returns for a new run. Of the team captains, Sean Lock is always good value ("All these hurricanes hitting New Orleans proves my theory that God hates jazz") but the guests can often be a rum bunch, with soap stars and vapid T4 presenters appearing alongside the comic talent.

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.

The nation's favourite waltzer John Sergeant chairs debates on the 2012 Olympics, video games and the Rooneys, with guests Jimmy Carr and Charlie Higson. It starts slowly but soon warms up when the improvisation starts - love him or loathe him, Carr is awfully quick.

I have a soft spot for Milton Jones. His show is so silly, so warm and daft. Like Count Arthur Strong, Radio 4's best comedy series, Another Case of Milton Jones is miles from the clever-clever satire that Radio 4 is known for. It is its own surreal world, one through which Milton bumbles, spouting groan-aloud puns, irritating all around him while trying to do his best.

He's immensely quotable, chucking out one-liners like bread for the birds: a high-speed Jimmy Carr without the cruelty. 'I've heard great things about your spring collection,' he said last week (he was being a fashion photographer). 'When exactly did you start collecting springs?' Yes, I know - awful - but a funny image. The lines come so thick and fast that you crumble eventually. Actually, you find yourself trying to predict the punch line. Easy enough if the set-up is: 'After the show, I went for an Italian...' ('Well, he was just annoying me, sitting there looking so stylish.')

But only a strange and brilliant comic mind could come up with: 'It's difficult to know if you remember something or you remember the photograph of something. One of my earliest memories is of being in America, standing over an air vent and my skirt billowing right up.'