Jon Holmes (I)

Alice Arnold and Jon Holmes bring the glorious fantasy radio show where amazing things happen, like all The Today Programme presenters talking together and the hunt for Melvyn Bragg, who's gone missing, lost in an In Our Time machine he's built with tips gleaned on his many adventures in knowledge. Don't listen to this sitting on a rickety chair. It may collapse under the impact of your laughter. The "interview" between John Humphrys and PM Cameron on the state of their relationship and a discussion of Rastamouse in a new role are both sublime.

Radio head: Miranda Hart and Jon Holmes

Sharp, funny and properly disgusting, Hart and Holmes are an instant presenting yin-yang hit.

Comedians re-create childhood photos

Take a dozen comedians, add some snaps from the family album, mix them all up and what do you get? Featuring Alan Carr, Miranda Hart, Greg Davies, Jessica Hynes, Sarah Millican, Dom Joly, Jason Byrne, Shappi Khorsandi, Chris Addison, Jimmy Carr, Russell Howard and Jon Holmes.

Hurray! I've really gone off The News Quiz (too blue for me and too self-satisfied for its own good) so welcome back Steve Punt, Hugh Dennis, Mitch Benn, Jon Holmes and Laura Shavin with their much wittier reflection of the week. There have been Friday nights in past series where I could have hugged them for being so astute and so funny about government goings on. Even with Cameron and Clegg and their coalition comrades being much harder to mimic than Brown and Blair, Darling, Prescott et al, I'm still confident my thoughts will be echoed in the team's jokes.

You never know, it might get witty this time. The venerable topical comment panel show returns for another season. Sandi Toksvig chairs, Jeremy Hardy, Sue Perkins and brilliant Andy Hamilton are among the guests. But is the nation in the mood for comedians taking pot shots? I doubt it. These are hard times and likely to get harder. That's why the gloriously spiky surrealism of Jon Holmes's Listen Against in this slot on Tuesdays is such a tonic. If News Quiz wants to be more than a habit it had better shape up. Radio 4's new Controller is listening.

If the real world becomes too much, try Listen Against (Radio 4, Tuesdays at 6.30pm). It is so funny it will rearrange everything. Last week the pipe carrying BBC Three exploded, polluting all programmes around it; the BBC expanded into pizza delivery ("We can't leave it to the private sector..."); Gaby Roslin and Ed Stourton channelled to the centre of the Earth for Children in Need; the Dimblebys become News Brothers, a musical. Alice Arnold, Jon Holmes and company on Listen Against will brighten even the darkest evening.

Were the Monty Python team starting out today, they might conceivably come up with something like the utterly fabulous Listen Against, supposedly a news round-up with Alice Arnold in the studio and Jon Holmes reporting. It's a glorious mixture of cannibalised cut-ups from the BBC's current affairs output and segments featuring Beeb figures playing themselves (Ed Stourton and Gaby Roslin, for example, on a Children in Need expedition to the centre of the Earth).

Much of it is directed at the BBC itself, and the triumphant stand-out last week was a rolling report from the scene of what Arnold called a "broadcastastrophe". "The pipe that pumps bad TV into the nation's digiboxes" had burst, and "gallons of terrible programmes" were spilling out, contaminating all the decent stuff with BBC3 output. "Awful programmes are threatening wildlife," said Holmes. "I saw a man trying to clean James Corden off a guillemot."

The emergency services were throwing episodes of Dad's Army down the shaft to try to stem the flow. And how much was escaping, Arnold inquired? "It's estimated at up to 3,000 scraped barrels a day," said Holmes.

What clever little sausages that Jon Holmes and his cutting crew are. Back for a third series of the show that cuts and re-edits radio and TV to great satirical effect, they turn their scatter guns on a range of targets, from David Mitchell and his takeover of all broadcasting to 24-hour rolling news coverage of a Jeremy Paxman on the rampage, randomly firing questions at passers-by. Joining in the joke and enjoying having the mickey taken out of them are John Humphrys, Jenni Murray and Richard Bacon. It's like Feedback, but with more blood and guts!

For those who prefer the gag-o-meter turned up to 11 on their election coverage, there's The Vote Now Show. Steve Punt, Hugh Dennis and the rest of the hardworking Now Show team are offering comedic biteback three nights a week for election season, with programmes being recorded just four hours before transmission to make sure they're bang up to date on the day's events.

On Monday, Andy Zaltzman subjected himself to a John Humphrys interview (Humphrys is delightfully game), while Jon Holmes' consideration of stirring theme tunes for party leaders provides the belly-laugh we all sorely need. Tuesday's instalment included John Finnemore's hilarious dos and dont's for campaign leaflets - horse illustrations are key, apparently.