Kevin Bishop (II)

There is obviously a market for Kevin Bishop's distinctive brand of comedy, but it is difficult to know what it is. Using the broadest of broad-brush impressions, it purports to tell the story of how Elton John became the patron saint of celebrities. The characters pilloried include Diana, Princess of Wales, Freddie Mercury, Robert Downey Jr, Liz Hurley and so forth accompanied by a crass commentary that mocks Elton John's baldness and bad temper.

At best, it could be argued that Star Stories attacks celebrity culture with a Punch and Judy exuberance, but many viewers will find it crude and aggressively unfunny.

The excellent Star Stories is back, with a hilariously un-life-like Sir Elton John (played by Kevin Bishop) as the first celebrity target of this third series.

The show gives us a hugely funny and almost entirely inaccurate account of Elton's early years in the spotlight, ultimately bringing us bang up-to-date with his role as the Patron Saint of Celebrities.

Having already shown us how singer Gary Barlow was taken under the wing of Nigel Martin-Smith and how Tom Cruise was introduced to Scientology after being hit over the head with a shovel by John Travolta.

It's now the turn of Sir Elton John and partner David Furnish to be given the Star Stories treatment by Kevin Bishop and Steve Edge in the third series of the very funny comedy parodying the lives and loves of big-time celebrities and Hollywood heavyweights.

There are plenty of funny wigs and silly voices to keep us suitably entertained as Elton's life and times are revealed, beginning in the Seventies, which he spent mostly in a blizzard of cocaine, to why it's bad to be bald and the reason it took so long for him to climb out of the closet.

The so-so comedy series starring Kevin Bishop returns for a third outing, lampooning the lives of Heather Mills and Peter and Jordan (the phrase 'shooting fish in a barrel' does come to mind).

Kevin Bishop continues to impress with this scatter-gun collection of spoofs and impressions.

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.

The first rule of sketch comedy is: if you're going to tell a bad joke, make it short. Elbowing its way into a market already crowded by everyone from Lucas and Walliams to Armstrong and Miller, The Kevin Bishop Show stuck admirably to this maxim. Bishop, the man behind the sporadically hilarious Star Stories, had me chewing my fist in embarrassment at times, and laughing, too.

I particularly enjoyed the American version of Countdown (the letters board read: HAMBURGRE) and Bruce Forsyth's audition for The Shining (axing his way through a door, Heeeeere's Brucie! Nice to see you...). There was satire, including spoof adverts for the fragrances 'Publicity by Sienna Miller' and 'Recession by Gordon Brown'.

By keeping sketches short and silly, Kevin Bishop and his show just about carried the day. But nothing he dreamt up made me laugh as hard as the talking tree.

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.