Mark Watson

For this two-hour bonanza in aid of Great Ormond Street Hospital Children's Charity, Channel 4 recently assembled 24 of Britain's best comedians to perform in front of a live audience at the O2 arena in London. So - deep breath - Jack Dee, Andy Parsons, David Mitchell, Fonejacker, Jack Whitehall, Jo Brand, James Corden, Jason Manford, John Bishop, Kevin Bridges, Kevin Eldon, Lee Evans, Mark Watson, Michael McIntyre, Noel Fielding, Patrick Kielty, Rich Hall, Rob Brydon, Ruth Jones, Sean Lock, Catherine Tate and Shappi Khorsandi take turns on stage to make it the biggest live stand-up show in British history. If that's not enough for you, Alan Carr and Bill Bailey perform with Stomp and Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant and Johnny Depp provide additional sketches.

Great Ormond Street Hospital is the recipient of this fundraising gala - the biggest live stand-up concert in UK history. And they couldn't have asked for more from the roster of stars who each donated five minutes last week at London's O2 Arena. Some hefty editing will be needed to get this show down to the two-hour running time it's been allotted and if the rude bits from Jonathan Ross and Mark Watson end up on the cutting room floor, then they may survive in the DVD which goes on sale on April 26.

Among those who'll definitely make the cut are, in no particular order, Michael McIntyre, Jack Dee, Bill Bailey, Kevin Eldon, Jason Manford, Jo Brand, Sean Lock and Noel Fielding.

The evening opens with a raucous dance number from Stomp and closes with a legendary performance from Lee Evans, looking the grand old man of stand-up in every sense.

Channel 4 Comedy Gala at the O2 Arena, London SE10

It was billed as "the biggest live stand-up show in UK history". But although this show in aid of the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children featured 30-odd comics performing to 15,000 people, with more on video clips, in many ways it conformed to the usual rules of the charity gala. Some acts reminded you why they are stars (Lee Evans, Michael McIntyre, Jack Dee). Some were good enough to win a lot of new fans (Mark Watson, Kevin Bridges, Patrick Kielty, John Bishop, Rich Hall, Sean Lock). Some did their thing and did it well (Noel Fielding, Jo Brand). Barely anyone died a death. And, though the O2's 11pm curfew forestalled the usual overrun, cor, did Evans, the headliner, strike a chord when he imagined what we were thinking: "Pleeeeease, finish!"

The final of No More Women. Gosh its exciting!

This is the final episode of the modest internet hit No More Women. It's the "decider". Me and Mark Watson were locked at 3:3 coming into this and whoever won would "take all".

Mark Watson: Apparently I'm a bad influence on the kids

Mark Watson has made some audacious attempts in his time.

We Need Answers, BBC Four, review

James Walton reviews We Need Answers, BBC Four's irreverent quiz show hosted by Mark Watson.

We Need Answers - Live on Twellyvision

We are launching the first ever (possibly) twellyvision experience. For, as the ninth episode of our glorious quiz airs on Tuesday night (at 10pm on BBC Four), we (myself, Mark Watson and Tim Key) shall both be watching and tweeting for your entertainment.

Frankie Boyle's been lanced, Russell Howard's wearing specs, but it's otherwise business as usual for satirical news quiz Mock The Week; a fusion of Have I Got News For You? and Whose Line Is It Anyway?, with irrelevant scoring and a weird mix of rounds that go from sitdown quiz to stand-up performances. It's all a mere conduit for ribpoking of the week's news stories, and MTW is perhaps more consistent than its contemporaries because four of the pannelists are regulars.

The downside of that consistency is that Hugh Dennis stopped being funny in the mid-'90s and Andy Parsons has never been funny, leaving host Dara O'Briain and Russell Howard to shoulder most of the comic burden. And, like a great many modern panel shows, a lot of guests just become glorified audience members, desperate to shoehorn in paraphrased segments of their standup material. This week, Mark Watson coped well as a guest (he's a veteran of this format), Patrick Kielty had the confidence to soldier through any difficulties he encountered, and while Milton Jones sometimes struggled to recycle his material appropriately, he at least didn't just sit back and do nothing. It helps that his stage persona is a spaced-out weirdo, so his weaker moments and slipups could be forgiven as part of his "act".

The top-notch panel show returns with guests Mark Watson, Patrick Kielty and Milton Jones - but how will it fare without the savage brilliance of Frankie Boyle?

No More Women:

Mark Watson, Tim Key and Alex Horne have taken the no-budget irreverence of their BBC4 game show We Need Answers to the web with this intensely competitive name game.

Filmed in dimly lit rooms around their offices and the BBC, as well as on-set, No More Women features Key and Watson simply naming famous people in turn against the clock.

The trick is for each of them to create a new rule before their opponent's next go - for example "no more names with the same letter twice in a row" or for ruthless players, "no more women".

To enliven what is essentially a pub game, Horne wittily commentates on the action off-camera in much the same offbeat way as on the main TV show, incessantly layering on graphics and fact boxes.

And as the tournament has progressed, they've roped in T4 presenter Rick Edwards and Radio 1's DJ Nihal to challenge the regular players in some "exhibiton matches".