Jonathan Wright

Jonathan Watson interview

Only An Excuse? star Jonathan Watson has a career that's moving along faster than Santa last week.

With the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death approaching, the HH team gather their best bard jokes and return to the Tudor days, when theatre was huge. "It had to be, there wasn't any telly." Ben Jonson, Christopher Marlowe and Gabriel Spenser delight as bad-boy rappers, while a Gene Kelly-spoofing turn from Miles Jupp centres on an era when people emptied chamber pots out of upstairs windows: "I'm singing in urine."

No doubt who is the biggest star on Graham's sofa tonight, as three-time Oscar-winner Meryl Streep visits the studio to discuss playing Florence Foster Jenkins in Stephen Frears's biopic of the tuneless opera singer. Streep's co-star Hugh Grant also appears, as does Keeley Hawes, promoting The Durrells. Music arrives from Eurovision hopefuls Joe and Jake, performing You're Not Alone, hopefully not a fateful choice of title given how many Eurovisions have ended with Britain's acts looking very lonely indeed.

The latest offering from Julia Davis (Nighty Night) focuses on a holiday under canvas. It's a trip to celebrate the 50th birthday of Robin (Steve Pemberton), who's married to Fiona (Vicki Pepperdine), a woman so assertive she puts the campsite kettle "out of bounds" to maintain tent-life authenticity. But can Fiona's itinerary-making authoritarianism survive the arrival of Tom (Rufus Jones) and his new partner (Davis)? A comedy that's best when it's close to the knuckle, which is most of the time.

As the sixtysomethings sitcom returns, it's Trevor's birthday. This means the gang have to spend the weekend at a campsite. Worse, at least from Alan's perspective, the men have been entered in a charity bike race. Still, as John notes, the money is going to Age UK, so "you're basically investing in your future". Maureen, Carol and Joyce meet a Swedish lad who appears to have a penchant for older women. Fine performances from a cast that includes Alison Steadman, but not nearly enough risks.

Playing everyone from an alternative therapy-obsessed porter to a chaplain who'd rather be a comedian, Tom Binns takes on multiple parts in a mockumentary pilot charting life at the fictional Brimlington Hospital. It's nowhere near edgy enough, but there are some good gags nonetheless. Manager Susan Mitchell discusses MRSA rates: "If you come into this hospital with a heart condition, you're going to die of a heart condition, not pick up a secondary infection along the way."

The resuscitated comedy commences its 12th series, which begins with Tracey receiving news that her ex-husband has left this mortal coil. A send-off paid for and attended by "every dodgy geezer in east London" follows. A very traditional sitcom, but well crafted and far more snappily scripted than when it first returned. To wit, Dorien spots a handsome silver fox of a gangster (Spandau Ballet's Martin Kemp) and asks: "Is that a gun in his pocket? Or ..." Sharon: "It's a gun, keep walking." Boom, boom!

The wry sitcom about three couples entering their winter years returns with an episode set in Calais following a shopping trip to Cologne's Christmas markets. The French are about to go on strike, making it imperative to catch the train. Disaster hits, creating space for one-liners from The Big Book of Sitcom Jokes - a lorry driver on why one of the show's leads should drive away with him: "I've been to Norfolk, she's better off in Dresden" - and a good football-with-the-Germans-in-no-man's land gag.

Ever adept at attracting top-line talent, Graham welcomes Thor star Chris Hemsworth and director Ron Howard (Apollo 13) to his sofa. The duo plug cinematic epic In the Heart of the Sea, based on Nathaniel Philbrick's account of the real-life whaling expedition that inspired Moby-Dick. Lily Tomlin, tipped for an Oscar for her role in Grandma, also guests, as does comedian Kevin Bridges. Blake and Dame Shirley Bassey, who have collaborated on a new Christmas single, provide the musical entertainment.

Toast's love life is in the doldrums. Luckily, Ed's girlfriend, Penvelope, has a friend, Clancy Moped (Sophie Colquhoun), "a weather girl off the television" who sports a Pussy Riot T-shirt. All goes well until Toast and Ed are asked to judge the International Beauty Contest for Women, a secretive event in the age of feminism. Fitfully amusing - especially the bits tonight with Peter Davison - but three series in, it's difficult to shake the idea that Toast's peculiarly heightened world has become too self-contained and self-referential.