Josie Lawrence

Jonathan Creek's mind meets its match in the problem-solving brilliance of a kidnap victim, held chained in a locked room. Strands of what appear to be separate storylines weave into a neat reveal as we follow the fortunes of a horny cleaner, a corpse in a nice hot bath, visiting twin sisters and party balloons. Josie Lawrence joins Alan Davies and Sarah Alexander for this final jaunt, along with June Whitfield - who puts in a delightful double appearance as the bickering twins.

Radio Times review

Yes, the good news is that June Whitfield appears in this final episode, not once but twice, playing twins Heidi and Laurel (note the names - they prove significant). Unfortunately, their storyline turns out to be something of a sideshow, in an episode that offers another rattle-bag of curiosities.

Writer David Renwick has reached the point (if he didn't years ago) where all connection to reality has been severed and we're left with tales driven purely by puzzles, puns and misunderstandings.

So Jonathan's wife Polly, for instance, does something rash that you feel sure she would never do. The point of her character is that she's sensible and sane, if inclined to overreact to things, as she does when Jonathan greets an old acquaintance - an attractive weather presenter - a little too warmly.

The main mystery involves the wife of a government minister who is kidnapped, then forgotten about for half the episode as we detour into the world of the Creeks' eccentric cleaner (Josie Lawrence). A priceless watch, a heron, lousewort, tights and an Aladdin's lamp are also involved.

The hit-and-miss nature of this series of short films is epitomised by tonight's double bill. First up is Johnny Vegas and Tony Pitts's tale of the begrudging Rupert (Vegas), who takes over his late father's tattoo business. He has to contend with the feelings of his dad's girlfriend, tattooist Fiona (Josie Lawrence), and a visit from a debt-collector, the cross-dressing Spinks (Paul Kaye). It's grimly amusing. Less successful is Tom Palmer and Tom Stourton's Fergus and Crispin, which follows two hapless posh-boy entrepreneurs as they try to come up with ideas to make money.

This week the show it features not one, but two, token women!

Josie Lawrence and Sarah Millican join host Rob Brydon and team captains Lee Mack and David Mitchell to help sort fact from fiction.

Also in tonight's episode we hear about the evil eye expression Huw Edwards employs during interviews.

And former Corrie star, game-show host and corpser extraordinaire Bradley Walsh fails miserably to maintain a poker face tonight.

His story - involving the theft of some mashed potato - will be submitted to the show's usual ruthless scrutiny, cross-interrogation and lightning wit.

"Talk about the Euro and do it with some level of insight!" demands David Mitchell of Lee Mack, in that pretend-outraged voice he uses a lot on this show. Mack gets his own back by demanding that Mitchell talk about last year's Carling Cup final. Neither of them can oblige, of course, but that's not the point: they're putting to the test the idea that Huw Edwards has an "evil eye" expression he uses to cut colleagues short in a studio discussion if they're going on too long. Edwards scowls a lot to demonstrate.

Sarah Millican, Josie Lawrence and Bradley Walsh are the other guests, with Walsh enjoyably corpsing as he tries to pretend he once stole mashed potato from his teachers.

This is the third attempt to put JAM on the box, the BBC having done it previously in 1994 and 1999. Parsons and Merton appear in each episode, with guests appearing being Sue Perkins, Gyles Brandreth, Stephen Fry, Liza Tarbuck, Graham Norton, Josie Lawrence and Julian Clary. There are also a fair number of new contestants: Jason Manford, Miles Jupp, Ruth Jones, Phill Jupitus, John Sergeant and Russell Tovey.

The format is the same, but there are some obvious changes; for a start, there's no scorer sitting next to Parsons. Instead he just has the scores on a screen, and the clock is started by a large button next to him. There's also a little bell rang to indicate they are moving into the final round.

Some things do remain the same, though. The studio is designed to look like the art deco BBC Radio Theatre, where the radio series is normally recorded. For some reason, however, the studio lights change from blue to purple when the subjects start. Why they need to do this I have no idea. I find the camerawork even more irritating. There's no need to cut from here to there every three seconds.

However, there's still much to enjoy from this show. I for one enjoy the little amusing asides that go through out each episodes. My personal favourite was in the fourth episode when the panel kept making jokes about Miles Jupp being the supposed love child of Gyles Brandreth. The jokes just kept snowballing throughout.

With regards to the TV adaptation, I know that there will always be people who will insist that it's not as good as the one on radio, but there are always people who complain about TV adaptations of radio shows. If we rejected every TV adaptation of a radio adaptation out of hand we wouldn't have had the TV successes of shows like Whose Line is it Anyway? or Little Britain.

I'd love to see more episodes of the TV version of Just a Minute; but I doubt they'll produce them. Unless they want to celebrate the show's 50th anniversary, that is, and given that Parsons is 88 years old that might be a bit dangerous.

If you prefer your comedy straight up this week's Just a Minute sees panellists Tony Hawks, Josie Lawrence, Justin Moorhouse and Dave Gorman at Derby University this week, talking about mature students, Derby, paying off student loans and Zanzibar (which happens to be the name of the student bar in Derby). The players' verbal dexterity is amusing, but it's their petty squabbling and Nicholas Parsons's exasperation that provide the belly laughs. And if this show doesn't snap you out of the January blues, there's probably no helping you until spring arrives.

Much, but not all, of the humour is rooted in the culture of 1980s Britain, the rise of the yuppie class, the dissatisfaction with Thatcher's Britain and other issues of the day. But the humour isn't all political: there's some broad physical humour courtesy of Lee Evans and Josie Lawrence provides some character-based monologues that satirise the world of television and celebrity.

A couple of the sketches fall flat, however, there are also some real strokes of comic genius too.

The only drawback to this second series of improvised comedy recorded in front of an audience is the same as the drawback to the first - you can't see Josie Lawrence. One supposes that there will be those similarly bereft at not having the full-on Jim Sweeney experience either.

That quibble aside, improv fans can tune in confident that the quality remains extremely high as the two riff off suggestions from the audience, adopting a variety of outrageous accents and doing their best to make the other corpse. Cheap entertainment at its finest - and no musical segments, either. Bonus.

It takes a brave pair to do improv in front of a raucous crowd. But Josie Lawrence and Jim Sweeney have more than enough credentials, characters and convincing accents to calculate the risk in Radio 4's favour.