Lauren Laverne

Review: Desert Island Discs with Bob Mortimer

Last week's interview with Bob Mortimer was a delight: good questions, easy atmosphere, excellent interviewee.

Quickfire bedtime chopsing about current affairs is all very well, but sometimes 10 O'Clock Live is like being in a pub at closing time with a bunch of blokes who all think they're the funniest. So it's refreshing to see Lauren Laverne fulfilling her potential at last in this third series, all of which is available to view on 4oD. She's funny in a way that means she doesn't need to shout about it, which is the sort of behaviour that would lead a woman to be burned at the stake on Mock The Week.

10 O'Clock Live review

It helps that this show's four presenters are funny people in their respective jobs, although there's a continuing problem with Lauren Laverne; she doesn't really fit.

A gaggle of familiar faces jostle for screen space as the topical news satire returns to take a pop at the week's headlines. While it's never quite matched the casual wit of Have I Got News For You or the US chutzpah of The Daily Show, there's always the chance one of the TV regulars - including Screenwipe's Charlie Brooker, Peep Show's David Mitchell and music pundit Lauren Laverne - will hit a funny bone when you're least expecting it.

The comic current affairs show returns with David Mitchell, Charlie Brooker, Lauren Laverne and Jimmy Carr sinking satirical claws into the week. Late-night political satire is a fixture of US television and if they got it right here, it could be a buzzy alternative to Question Time. So far 10 O'Clock Live has only shown flashes of that, but Mitchell is a better interviewer than you'd expect and his longer pieces, along with Brooker's Screenwipe-ish rants, mean the show is always good in parts.

A strange one, this. Without ever quite feeling the sum of its talented parts, this satirical current affairs show has made it to a third series. Last time around, certain problems still bedevilled 10 O'Clock Live. The tone remained unsure and Lauren Laverne still felt a tad underemployed. And yet it continued to be watchable - David Mitchell proved to be a reasonably penetrating interviewer and Charlie Brooker's world-weary plaints are always good value. Plus, any show that has James Delingpole up in arms is all right by us.

This time around, it's probably make or break. 10 O'Clock Live could establish itself as an irreverent but still sentient alternative to Newsnight (we'd suggest at least one lengthier and slightly more serious news piece per show), or it could drift off towards irrelevance and self-indulgence. For what it's worth, we'd like it to work and there's no reason why it can't.

Lauren Laverne hates fake tans, square plates and flags ("Nothing good ever came out of a flag: racism, nationalism, Geri Halliwell at the Brits"). Larry Lamb isn't happy about all those trendy, confusing loo signs ("Save it for the jury," retorts host Frank Skinner). And comedian David O'Doherty doesn't like the age 35 - "the first truly disappointing age." "I once went to an 18-30s do," says Skinner. "I got completely mixed up and went as Lord Alfred Tennyson." He's here all week.

If Friday night panel shows are your thing, then you could do a lot worse than this likeable option hosted by an on-form Frank Skinner. Three celebrities compete to banish their pet hates to the hellish environs of Room 101. Tonight, former EastEnders actor Larry Lamb, comedian David O'Doherty and TV and radio presenter Lauren Laverne square off against each other, the last of whom wants to can fake tan ("We're walking around looking like a nation of Oompa Loompas," she laments).