Martin Freeman

If Paul, the last Simon Pegg/Nick Frost movie, was a self-indulgent journey into the outer realms of nerdiness, their latest collaboration is aimed squarely at those without an intimate knowledge of the Star Wars movies.

A crowd pleaser, this is a sci-fi comedy for everyone. Twenty years after a teenage pub crawl through their hometown, Pegg rounds up his old buddies (Frost, Paddy Considine, Martin Freeman, Eddie Marsan) for a re-run.

But while reminiscing, they learn that the place has a severe case of the Stepfords.

The film contains plenty that men approaching middle age will relate to and the laughs never dry up with Pierce Brosnan, who plays one of their former teachers, an absolute hoot.

I used to enjoy, very much, listening to Count Arthur Strong. But that was when it was on the radio, and I was in the bath. Six-thirty of a pm, the purple glower of dusk, risotto glooping away gently on the stove, and life doesn't get much better than that. I fully appreciate that expectations can vary hugely according to, for instance, personal childcare needs, personal mental health, local proliferation of guns, wholly imagined threat of incipient alien attack, etc. But the programme used to make me smile. Now, instead, it's on my television, and that is, I think, a mistake, and not just because of the cricked neck and spilt Radox as, bath-bound, I crane my head towards the living room.

It wasn't bad. It was co-written by Graham Linehan, of Father Ted fame, which you would expect to have accorded it some comedy chops, and original creator Steve Delaney, who played the titular count, a pompous, bumbling malaprop-trap from Doncaster. The problem was this: it wasn't at all funny. There's recent history here, in the form of executives merely thinking a "name" is enough - in this case, Linehan; a couple of months ago, and in a far, far worse case of unfunny, Ben Elton - to create, as they probably say, albeit with knowing cynicism, comedy gold. In the end, it was just a something about a pompous bumbling man from Donny. Quite why it ever worked on radio I'm now struggling to understand.

Here's a thought. All generalisations are dangerous, even this one, but: few programmes migrate well from radio. There's Have I Got News For You, a spin-off from the (still extant, and wickeder than ever) News Quiz; and Tony Hancock's finest half-hours were actually on the screen. But executive shoes corridor-crunch on the ossified bodies of "hit" shows that died on the transition to screen. Just a Minute became just a dirge. Famously, Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker's... was a roiling trough of rhino poop. Not even that lovely Martin Freeman, in the marginally better movie, could pull it off, and the original TV series was a travesty. The phrase "Zaphod Beeblebrox had two heads" works fine-ish as a line in a book, or spoken on the radio (actually it wasn't that funny, ever) - when we can imagine it, in the bath, in the wonder of the mind's eye. On TV, some poor actor was actually given a kind of "ball of saggy painted calico, with eyes" to waggle on his shoulders as a second head. It's the difference between having to show it, and trusting the listener/reader to, basically, "insert image here": and, incidentally, the reason why Lucky Jim, the funniest book of the 20th century, has never been filmed, other than execrably. Surreality, wordplay and extended interior monologues would seem particularly vulnerable to becoming lost in transition: but I don't know quite why I'm banging on about things that don't work on TV, when there were so many last week that did. It's just that I... well, I quite liked lying in the bath. Imagining.

The Job Lot (ITV) is one of those comedies I want to make me bellylaugh because of the people in it but I'm not really getting beyond the odd wry smirk.

Despite boasting a great cast - Russell Tovey from Him & Her (and much besides), Miranda's Sarah Hadland and Adeel Akhtar from Utopia - squeezing amusement out of the daily grind of life in a job centre is proving an uphill struggle.

The problem partly stems from the feeling that the characters haven't got anywhere to go. Tovey's desk monkey Karl is the equivalent of Martin Freeman's Tim in The Office, both stuck in dead-end jobs and not quite sure how they got there, both niggled by the idea they're worth something better. But with Tim you could envision a life beyond; Karl ceases to exist the moment he steps outside the door.

It's that lack of credibility that makes The Job Lot just a journeyman old-school sitcom, cranking the odd easy laugh out of secret websites and unwipeable whiteboards - drawings of bottoms always crack a smile - but the lack of ambition makes it a candidate for early redundancy.

The Job Lot, which, while nowhere near as sharp as Vicious, is a perfectly amiable and amusing sitcom set in a drab job centre (is there such a thing as a bright, welcoming job centre?).

Despite being a single-camera comedy with no laugh-track, it's essentially a traditional sitcom populated by dysfunctional characters and daffy situations. It is, however, blatantly influenced by The Office, not because it's a workplace comedy - Gervais and Merchant didn't invent that genre - but because of the exceedingly Tim-like lead played by Russell Tovey. A bright, likeable everyman trapped in a job he detests - his feelings for an attractive female colleague stop him from leaving - the similarity is compounded by the fact that Tovey appears to have partially based his acting style on Martin Freeman.

While Tim-bot 2000 is mildly distracting, he doesn't detract overall from a show which, given the danger inherent in its recession-fuelled premise, mercifully refrains from sneering at the unemployed. Granted, one of the regular job-seekers is portrayed as a harmless oddball, but it's significant that the villain of the piece is a rude, sadistic and actively obstructive job centre employee played by the excellent Jo Enright.

This character has an obvious antecedent in the monstrous Pauline from The League of Gentleman. She also shares a few genes with Little Britain's "Computer says 'No'" grotesque. And yet despite these visible origins, Enright imbues her with a distinctive, deadpan venom.

What this all adds up to is a derivative yet serviceable sitcom with a smattering of potential. But it undoubtedly succeeds in being an ITV sitcom that's Not Appalling. I still can't quite believe it and Vicious exist at all.

If his chat show is anything to go by, Graham Norton could keep up his chirpy line in celeb quizzing in his sleep. Which is just as well, for tonight he embarks on a mammoth six-hour chat-athon in a Guinness Book of World Records bid to pose the most questions asked on a TV chat show. All in aid of Comic Relief. Our Graham's not flying solo, though - Frank Skinner and Terry Wogan are on the subs bench and there's music from Example, Paloma Faith, Hurts and Laura Mvula. Celeb guests chatting along include Louis Smith, Martin Freeman, Russell Tovey, Heston Blumenthal and Sarah Millican.

Graham Norton will be prattling on (or, to be strictly accurate, on and on and on and on and on and on and on...) in a Comic Relief fundraiser tonight on BBC Three[/]. Yep, another one.

Comic Relief's Big Chat With Graham Norton will kick off at 7pm, and unless the whole thing goes tits-up and he develops laryngitis or something, it'll continue into he early hours - by which point, and here's the thing, our host hopes to have smashed the world record for the most questions asked on a TV chat show.

Among his many guests will be Martin Freeman, Sarah Millican and Louis Smith, with the likes of Frank Skinner and Nick Grimshaw doing co-host stints.

Norton foregoes the usual physical challenges beloved of Comic Relief for a more sedentary affair: attempting to set the Guinness world record for most questions asked on a TV chat show, which should see him broadcasting into the wee hours of Friday morning. We can only hope that Graham also dispenses with his usual tipple of wine with guests, otherwise this chatathon is going to get very messy.

So far guests announced as appearing on the sofa include Ronnie Corbett, RT's Sarah Millican, Martin Freeman, Elle Macpherson, James Nesbitt, Louis Smith, Heston Blumenthal, Warwick Davis, Russell Tovey and Jimmy Carr, though you wouldn't bet against an American superstar or two turning up, too. Music acts will include Example, Paloma Faith, Hurts and Laura Mvula.

Graham will be assisted by co-hosts Terry Wogan, Frank Skinner and Nick Grimshaw, and viewers can help, too, by submitting questions via Twitter and Facebook. And by donating money.

This is one of those weeks when Norton's red banquette seems to have the pulling power of a locomotive. First there's Martin Freeman: the opening film of The Hobbit trilogy is released today, which means the diffident Freeman, who plays Bilbo Baggins, is about to turn into a major global star.

Also on the banquette will be Emma Thompson, Dawn French and TV's fastest wit, Lee Mack. Plus, for good measure, there's music from newly reunited Girls Aloud.

The presence on Norton's sofa of those icons of innocent childhood, Peter Rabbit and Bilbo Baggins, is a startling juxtaposition. But Norton is full of surprises. Actually, it's not the rabbit himself who puts in an appearance, but actress Emma Thompson, who has written a sequel to Beatrix Potter's beloved story. Martin Freeman talks about his role as the hairy-toed hobbit in Peter Jackson's new film, and the recently re-formed Girls Aloud perform.

From the Friday vault: Hardware with Martin Freeman

Martin Freeman's stock is going through the roof these days given his brilliant performance in Sherlock and, what I'm already assuming is brilliant in the upcoming Peter Jackson fantasy epic, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, as Bilbo Baggins. Many were 'introduced' to Martin back in 2001 as Tim in Ricky Gervais' The Office. Post Office, Freeman starred in Hardware, a short-lived situation comedy set in Hamway's Hardware Store in London.