Jonathan Ross

It's a sad day for stand-up comedy fans. Now that Jonathan Ross has almost served his sentence, this will be the last outing for Live At The Apollo. And there's no word yet on if or when the series will return.

First up tonight is Russell Howard, who toddles on stage looking like a lost schoolboy but within seconds turns into a kid pumped up on too much Sunny Delight. With the customary energy we know from Mock The Week, he bounces from one subject to the next, starting with bizarre heckles then evil sandwiches and bus stops with hats to scary 13-yearolds and why you should never underestimate little old ladies.

He also has a genius way of livening up a trip to Ikea - if you've had a few drinks and live near a branch that's open until midnight, you might want to head off straight away (but only if it's walking distance or you know a sober driver, OK?).

The second act is Jo Brand, who tackles topics including Russian brides, the dangers of going to the pub, Barbie dolls and why Bruce Forsyth should wear baggy trousers that show off his bum crack.

I know, it's not an image I want to think about for too long either..

Gavin's Gag Over Joke

James Corden and Mathew Horne revealed the BBC banned songs about Jesus on their new sketch show after the Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand prank row.

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.

Stand-Up On The Box

Does stand-up comedy work on TV? It's a question regularly asked by TV people and we are about to find out again. The stand-up showcase Live At The Apollo is due to fill the Jonathan Ross-shaped hole on BBC1 from Friday 28 November.

Producers and directors, weep and despair! Bilious but brutally funny critic Charlie Brooker is back for another series of satirical swipes at the television industry. First up in his cross-hairs, expensive but bland television dramas, property shows and the furore surrounding Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross.

It's been far too long, but finally Brooker, the master of dissecting current trends in television, returns for a new series. Expect the Ross/Brand saga, the economic meltdown, and costume dramas to come under Brooker's acerbic gaze.

Sometimes you just have to admit you were wrong. And, as Beautiful People limed to a disappointing conclusion, the bloom had well and truly left the cheeks of Jonathan Harvey's saga of a high camp Reading childhood.

So forget all the praise I'd heaped on it back in the beginning because all the decent jokes and imaginative set pieces got used up in the first two episodes. After that point, it went downhill quicker than Jonathan Ross's bargaining power at the BBC.

Even the arrival of Frances Barber as a madly bohemian teacher couldn't rescue Beautiful People's decline into limp-wristed cliché. Quite why Barber, an actress who could turn the weather forecast into a Greek tragedy, isn't a major star is just one of life's inexplicable injustices.

It's been a terrible week for popular, wild-haired comedian Russell Brand. After he and Jonathan Ross left lewd messages on actor Andrew Sachs' voicemail during a Radio 2 show, more than 18,000 complaints pushed him into parting company with the BBC.

Inevitably, the tabloid furore over 'Sachsgate' boosted the return of Russell Brand's Ponderland to 1 million viewers for the start of its second series.

Besides a better set, the bedrock of Ponderland's format remained the same: Brand introduces a funny clip from the TV archives, the footage is played to a live studio audience, and Brand finally dissects the clip by spinning it into a meandering, surreal few minutes of iffy stand-up. Some of it works, most of it doesn't. I've always found Brand an odd TV presence (his shark's grin, his big hair, those tight trousers), and much prefer his anarchic, playful radio persona without that visual distraction. It's just an ironic pity radio gave him enough rope to hang himself with, isn't it.

Kevin Bishop does impressions - of Jonathan Ross, Gordon Ramsey, Al Pacino, lots of people. Generally there's a twist. So Al Pacino is auditioning for Superman, on a DVD that comes free with the Daily Mail. And here's Cowell - not Simon though, his (much) less successful brother Brian. They're still impressions, though. And I'm not really seeing anything I haven't seen on Bremner, McGowan, French and Saunders even. Do we need another? Guess how Americans are portrayed. Fat and stupid. That's just lame.

In Channel 4's British Comedy Award-winning Star Stories, Kevin Bishop was a revelation. Each week his schoolboy-cheeky caricatures of everyone from Tom Cruise to Alex Ferguson stole the show. So Channel 4 gave him his own sketch show.

The pilot earlier this year was, not to put too fine a point on it, poor. All the more reason to rejoice that this first episode of the series proper is in a different league, with a string of impishly silly, very funny ideas, mostly film or TV spoofs.

It doesn't hurt that the pace is ridiculously fast: if you don't like one skit, don't worry, another will be along in seconds.

There's the Daily Mail DVD giveaway that includes Bruce Forsyth's try-out for The Shining; there's Pimp My Ride with Stephen Hawking; there's Sophie's Choice - The Musical; and a visit to Simon Cowell's brother Brian, who runs a convenience store in Rotherham. Best of all there's a running joke about Jonathan Ross that makes it safe to assume Bishop won't be invited on the former's chat show any time soon.