Lucy Mangan

Comedy Women In Print longlist announced

The Published Novel longlist for the Comedy Women in Print Prize (CWIP) is announced on 21st December, comprising a range of satire, sharp wit and dark humour from both established names and debut writers and showcases the evolution of original witty women's writing.

2022 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction shortlist announced

The 2022 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction has announced an extended shortlist of twelve titles in contention for this year's award, in recognition of the exceptionally strong list of submissions it has received.

Frayed review - like a nightmare on Ramsay Street

Samantha has a dream life in London. But when her husband dies in a sexually compromising situation, she ends up broke, desperate and Down Under.

Ricky Gervais: Humanity review

In his first stand-up show since 2010, The Office co-creator sometimes hits the mark in this special as he shows off his fierce talent and divisive humour.

No Offence: drama almost as chilling as the real thing

The third episode of Abbott's latest creation is a riot and flashes by at breakneck speed.

Esio Trot review

This adaptation of Roald Dahl's book about a love affair, starring Judi Dench and Dustin Hoffman and 100 tortoises, is a thing of wonder.

Mr Sloane TV review - flashes of something lovely

Mr Sloane is not terribly innovative or funny: if they cut the comedy this could turn into a fine marital drama.

Tommy Cooper: Not Like That, Like This review

David Threlfall should walk off with this year's best actor Bafta after a pitch-perfect portrayal of the much-loved comedian, supported by a phalanx of perfectly turned supporting roles.

Over on BBC Four things were uplifting, thanks to The Walshes - a new sitcom from Graham Linehan, co-written with comedy troupe Diet of Worms, the latter playing the members of the eponymous Dublin family. It's not the subtlest piece of work you'll ever see (dad Tony, under erroneous impression that daughter Keira's new boyfriend is a doctor, shows him his "small anal event - like a rubbery M&M behind me scrotum!") but there are lovely touches. Mother Carmel's "demented fridge". Neighbour Mike who appears quietly at intervals from behind the latest banjaxed Walsh appliance. The "28A" affixed to Keira's door to make her feel like she's got her own flat. I laughed. At two points I nearly cried. Linehan et al are either geniuses or need to be burned as witches. I'll tune in next week to decide.

So after seven years and five series we must say farewell to Outnumbered (BBC One), which has at last been outmanoeuvred by Mother Nature and the pulsating endocrine systems of its now only semi-juvenile leads. Jake (Tyger Drew-Honey), Ben (Daniel Roche) and Karen (Ramona Marquez) were 11, eight and six respectively when the sitcom about life in the overscheduled, underdisciplined Brockman household began in 2007. Now Karen looks like a 25-year-old model, Jake is a tangle of gangling limbs and Ben - well, Ben still looks like Ben, but galumphs stolidly now rather than pinballs round the house, more usually mortified these days than gratified by the havoc he creates.

In the beginning, most of the art and all of the craft went into assembling the children's semi-improvised performances into workable narrative wholes. As the exhausted parents, Claire Skinner and Hugh Dennis gave lovely, understated and endlessly, beautifully generous performances that left the children room to perform while gently trammelling them in the right direction. It was all very ... parental, really, and doubtless almost as exhausting as the real thing.

But now the kids have minds, scripts and marks of their own. They manage them all very well. To say that the magic is gone is not to do them a disservice but simply to recognise that Outnumbered was a series built round the unfakeable pre-adolescent world-weariness of the 11-year-old oldest child, the irreproducible childish ebullience of Ben and - words almost fail me. What was it about Karen? The sense of nascent megalomania within? The slow, styptic blink when she spotted an inconsistency in an adult's story or an incompatibility with her world view? The moral sense of a snake coupled with the unforgiving judgment of a Puritan preacher? The sociopathic detachment with which she scanned for personal weakness and the elegance with which she struck? ("So you've been a bridesmaid? But never a bride.") The composure remains, but she has grown into it now. The preternatural element of her gifts-slash-unnameable threat has lessened. The family and viewer are less tense. It's a relief, but the laughs are fewer and our time together is over. It was great while it lasted though.