Martine McCutcheon

What happened to Love Actually cast?

With a love triangle, an affair and doomed romances - who could have predicted Love Actually would become such an iconic Christmas film? Here, we look at the fates of those behind one of Britain's all-time favourite Christmas flicks.

"We're not doing points, this isn't The Chase!" Harry Hill's surreal spin on celebrity panel shows has always been more interested in cultivating an anything-goes atmosphere of inclusive absurdity than doing something as boring as keeping score. The third series kicks off with a particularly seasoned guest list as Martine McCutcheon, Les Dennis, Alison Hammond and Sir Tom Courtenay heroically send themselves up in service to Harry's daft skits and silly bits, including an unexpected tribute to Raiders of the Lost Ark.

The Bromley Boys review

This frail comedy about a Bromley FC fan has the odd sweet moment but strikes a false and badly unfunny note.

Red Nose Day Actually review

Despite all the celeb cameos the charity update of Richard Curtis's romcom was bafflingly weak. But ultimately its job wasn't to get laughs - it was to help people.

ITV clearly has big hopes for this reboot of the long-running celebrity home-invasion panel show. Both Vernon Kay and Paul O'Grady were reportedly in the running to spend their Saturday evenings rummaging through the drawers of the great, the good and the goadawful. Then ITV decided to split the difference, handing the task over to Leigh Francis's high-achieving alter-ego, gurning Northern malapropism-merchant Keith 'Ooosh!' Lemon.

And, love him, loathe him or remain in a state of semi-ignorant bafflement, Lemon is clearly in his element here, rifling through the pads of an Olympian (naturally), a couple of boy band refugees (jolly) and a former Deputy Prime Minister (oh, John...) while Dave Berry, Martine McCutcheon and Eamonn Holmes - who in the ITV-verse counts as a sage elder statesman - attempt to riddle out whose house is whose. In essence, it's a quizzed-up Cribs for crinklies.

Compared to much of the shiny-floored crunk that ITV (and, indeed, the BBC) has been pumping out of late, Through the Keyhole, or, as Keith has it Fruit'keyhole, is a fairly decent stab at bouncy Saturday evening fun. Decent enough, in fact, to make one wonder why it's been shunted back to 9.20 just to make room for a few F-bombs and other assorted bleeped out swears. This has got 7.30 - and therefore bigger ratings - written all over it.

So it was back to the kitchen for No Angel by Andy Lynch, on Radio 2's Comedy Showcase. Martine McCutcheon played a TV producer, trying to get ahead while coping with her ghastly star (Clive Anderson). She keeps meeting a disreputable man with a heavy Liverpool accent (Ricky Tomlinson). Is he stalking her? Could he be her father? No, he was her guardian angel. She took some convincing. I didn't. The title rather gave it away. But the real surprise here was how awful Clive Anderson was in a straight role. Perhaps he didn't want to pretend to be vain, bossy, unreasonable and demanding which was why he made his lines sound like plasterboard. McCutcheon and Tomlinson certainly did better with theirs.

No Angel was squarely in the tradition of Radio 4 sitcoms in that it was rubbish. Martine McCutcheon and Ricky Tomlinson were wasted on a promising set-up - she's a harassed radio chat-show flunkey, he's her guardian angel. When they were together you could forget the pedestrian script and the lack of laughs. When Clive Anderson was on, as the chat-show host, you couldn't. His scenes were excruciating: he needs to get back to the day jobs.