Mark Lawson

TV matters: Outnumbered

It can be tricky when fictional television characters watch TV, but Outnumbered manages to make it both believable and funny.

TV Matters: Frank Skinner's Opinionated

Mark Lawson explains why Frank Skinner's loss is our gain.

According to Mark Lawson, a recent meeting between top-level BBC talent and execs saw the former bemoaning the corporation's current paranoia about any joke that the Daily Haters might find offensive, and arguing that this was stifling comedy. The suits apparently hit back by saying, "How can you say we are not risk-taking when The Thick Of It is on - and on Saturday nights, no less?" To tvBite's little mind, this is to miss the point: TTOI is still very good, but is now just a one-man turn. No matter how brilliantly barked the sweary similes, is a parody of a Labour spin-doctor who quit six years ago really pushing back the boundaries of comedy and taste? Not hating on the show, but if the execs are patting themselves on the back for how cutting-edge the series is, then that's evidence of a big problem.

TV matters: The Impressions Show

Jon Culshaw does a spot-on impression of . . . Alistair McGowan.

TV matters: The Graham Norton Show

Graham Norton's back - and he's parked his tanks firmly on Jonathan Ross's lawn.

Because TV usually offers larger audiences and salaries than radio, series that excite listeners are rapidly offered to viewers. I've Never Seen Star Wars, in which stars try out activities they've previously avoided, is the latest, crossing from Radio 4 to BBC Four next Thursday. Such transfers often show their roots: the intense attention to voices in Little Britain results from creating characters who could orginally not be seen, as, more obviously, does Dead Ringers.

I've Never Seen Star Wars is a good example of a dual-use idea: Barry Cryer changing a nappy for the first time is a spectacle that works equally well heard or seen. Ironically, for a series with a sight-verb in its title, I've Never Seen Star Wars is a glimpse of the economic future of broadcasting: a series where it's irrelevant whether you see it or not.

The strange afterlife of Reginald Perrin

A character whose initials spell RIP was always destined more for death than resurrection but Reginald Iolanthe Perrin is to rise again, with Martin Clunes stepping into the shoes that Leonard Rossiter left on the beach when he faked his own demise in the David Nobbs comedy that ran on BBC1 from 1976-1979.

Strictly come spoofing

Since Peter Kay became one of the hottest talents on television, through Phoenix Nights and standup, there has been understandable excitement about where he might go next on TV. It turns out that he has chosen to go for TV: the tongue-busting title of his new Channel 4 show, broadcast this Sunday, is Peter Kay's Britain's Got the Pop Factor and Possibly a New Celebrity Jesus Christ Soapstar Strictly on Ice - a highly evolved satire on reality TV.

Using genuine personnel from wannabe programmes (presenter Cat Deeley, judges Nicki Chapman and Pete Waterman), Kay has devised a competition between fictional contestants, including Kay himself in drag as big-hearted chanteuse Geraldine. For extra realism, the send-ups will be broadcast in two parts on the same night: an early evening heat and a late-night results show.

According to the continuity announcer, I've Never Seen Star Wars is a journey outside the comfort zone. Every week, a guest will be invited to try a series of things he or she has never done before, and then engage in witty banter with Marcus Brigstocke: this week, for example, Phill Jupitus tried foie gras, pigs' trotters, Findus Crispy Pancakes, and - understandably, after that lot - colonic irrigation. Brigstocke sat in on this one with him, and their reminiscences about the process were jarringly candid.

That episode aside, it all felt oddly well-worn: celebrity guests are by definition familiar; Brigstocke is now established as the Mark Lawson of comedy - reliable but perhaps a tad overexposed - and his gags here were based largely on confirming prejudices: when Jupitus admitted he'd never read Dan Brown, Brigstocke chimed in for an easy laugh with Course not. What's the point? Ho-hum: BBC light entertainment business as usual.

So, naturally, the first 10 minutes of Lawson's polite gossip with Dee was about the making of the series and Dee's own feelings as an actor and the writer of a semi-autobiographical sitcom [...] Whether Lawson's guests have had anything to plug or not - and in the main, they haven't - is only incidental, as proved by the case of Dee, through whom we got a fascinating, candid 50-minute insight into a complicated life and career.