Kevin McNally

Hancock's Half Hour: a triumphant remake of comedy gold

"So should you watch it? Yes. Yes, you should, and then you should write letters to the BBC demanding that they reassemble this cast and crew post-haste," says Tom Cole.

Tony Hancock is the Picasso of moaning

The BBC's Hancock revival is so good it sparked an epiphany. I've not laughed that much at a British sitcom in years. Nothing on TV is actually that funny anymore. It's not that there aren't shows I like and enjoy, it's just that I now realise I wasn't really laughing at them. I was only smiling wistfully. Or going "Ha."

TV preview: Lost Sitcoms - Hancock's Half Hour, BBC4

Stone me this is good. I was a little bit worried about this TV recreation of a lost Hancock episode because last week's Alf Garnett reboot was so disappointing. But there is no problem here. A combination of excellent casting and excellent writing makes this easily as funny as most contemporary sitcoms.

'Lost Sitcoms' review: 'Hancock's Half Hour'

Entirely studio-bound with only three sets and no special effects or flashy camera tricks, director Ben Gosling Fuller is free to concentrate on the actors and the vintage material they're performing.

TV review: Power Monkeys C4

Nobody can say that the writers of Power Monkeys have been short of material over the last six episodes. We've had shock votes, Trump, resignations a-go-go, imminent political collapse, leadership campaigns, betrayal and so much more. And it was still coming with the final episode which aired on the day of the publication of the Chilcot Enquiry.

Just like with last year's Ballot Monkeys, Power Monkeys by writers Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin have worked on their script up to the day of transmission to include as many topical gags as possible. Another similarity between the two shows is that we follow four camps of people with Ballot Monkeys concentrating on the four major parties going into the 2015 General Election. But as this show focuses on the EU Referendum there is only really two campaigns to focus on namely the Vote Remain and Vote Leave groups. Although I do feel that there was probably enough material to focus on just these two groups, I think to keep up the pace that made Ballot Monkeys so enjoyable Hamilton and Jenkin added two more parties just to keep things going. Those parties are the team behind Donald Trump's presidential run as well as two members of Vladimir Putin's staff. I do feel targeting Trump and Putin is quite easy but a lot of the jokes about these two men have already been made elsewhere and I don't think that the writers really had anything new to say about them. So while these segments were funny I think the running joke about Trump not allowing any female journalists to interview him was quite cliched and was done to death. The more interesting parts of the episode involved the two sides of the referendum with the vote leave campaign headed up by the returning Gerry (Andy Nyman) who was working alongside the ultra-patriotic Spencer (Kevin McNally), the focused Preeya (Archie Panjabi) and young Labour supporter Jackie (Gwyneth Keyworth). On the other side of the fence was Oliver (Jack Dee) whose offensive jokes were getting on the nerves of his colleague and fellow remain campaigner Sara (Claire Skinner). It was the interplay between McNally and Panjabi and Skinner and Dee which provided the central highlights of this first episode of Power Monkeys primarily as both sets of performers bounced off each other perfectly. I have to say though I was a little disappointed as I expect a lot more from Hamilton and Jenkin and I feel that Power Monkeys lacked the focus that Ballot Monkeys possessed. That being said I'm going to stick with the show for now as I'm a fan of the majority of the cast and have loved the writers ever since Drop the Dead Donkey. But I'm just hoping the quality of the episodes improve as I would say that the first episode of Power Monkeys was simply a little lacking in big laughs and that's not what I expected from the follow-up to one of the funniest sitcoms of last year.

Radio Times review

A sparkly, disposable bauble that reunites 24: Live Another Day co-stars Stephen Fry and Kiefer Sutherland, but in roles that could hardly be more different. Sutherland is a suburban dad and husband who's not very good at either. With Christmas coming, red bills are piling up and his failure as head of his family is about to be revealed. He needs money. The guy next door (Kevin McNally) is a pathetically seething cuckold who has money, and wants a nasty favour in return...

Fry is the magic element in a half-hour caper with a whiff of It's a Wonderful Life. Don't invest too heavily, but the crispness of Fry and Sutherland's long scene together - and the now-rare chance to see Fry flex his comic acting muscles - makes up for the tale not amounting to much.