Kevin Bishop (I)

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.

Making a good impression

Kevin Bishop talks to The Telegraph about his new series

Kevin Bishop's new sketch show - like most sketch shows - is a hit-and-miss affair. It is mostly celebrity based, relying on spoofs of TV and film, and his impersonations are deliberately more impressionistic than accurate. But the sketches are so fast that none of the duds have time to do any damage and there are enough imaginative and entertaining flights of fancy to make it all worthwhile.

Sketch shows have short-changed the public

Kevin Bishop talks to a website about how seeing the same joke told six times in a series has been damaging the genre, and how his show is different.

Kevin Bishop interview in The Times

There's some terrific comedy when the king of spoof - Kevin Bishop - returns. He came to the forefront in Star Stories, and is well on form in The Kevin Bishop Show. Don't miss it.

Comedy Showcase had been largely disappointing but Kevin Bishop's sketch show made it all seem worthwhile. Having built a following with Star Stories, he could be the next big thing.

I'm not a huge fan of Star Stories - it always feels a little too pleased with itself. But that doesn't deny the talents of Kevin Bishop, who gets his own sketch show in the last of the Comedy Showcase pilots. Sadly, it falls a little flat, which is a shame, as it seems a series has already been commissioned.

It'll be interesting to see what Bishop can achieve with a full series to let the material breath, so I'm hoping the failings of the pilot are just a false start.