Matt Berry

Radio Times review

Now in its 25th year, The British Comedy Awards remains that rare thing: an awards ceremony with the potential for something unpredictable and interesting to happen. Still, some things are guaranteed: Jonathan Ross will say something deeply off-colour, making the audience "Ooh" like mischievous schoolchildren. Leading the nominations with six is Matt Berry's shouty-voiced sitcom Toast Of London, while among those competing for the King Or Queen Of Comedy award are David Mitchell, Jo Brand and Greg Davies.

Radio Times review

Jonathan Ross is your host as the nation's comics get together and royally rip the mickey. No tears. No compliments. It's their way of saying they love each other.

The nominations list shows 2014 has been an exceptional year - albeit primarily for white men, who are so glaringly dominant, it's a wonder there aren't any blokes up for best comedy actress.

The evening should belong to Matt Berry, whose riotous Toast of London is in line for six awards, the most nods since Gavin & Stacey seven years back. His fellow best actor nominee Mathew Baynton might have a better chance in the restored comedy drama category - if The Wrong Mans can edge out Rev. and the dazzling Inside No 9.

Or will it be a night for codgers? Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse's labour of love Story of the Twos is justly recognised, and there are two noms for a gang of plucky UKTV debutants called Monty Python...

Sam Neill to guest star in Toast of London

Toast of London star Matt Berry has revealed that Jurassic Park actor Sam Neill will guest in series three.

It's been an eventful second series for Matt Berry's failing thesp, which has included acting in high wind, masonic cults and, in last week's final episode, a guest appearance from Queens Of The Stone Age frontman Josh Homme. Toast will be back for a third anarchic outing next year, while in the meantime newcomers can enjoy the full first two runs on 4OD.

Toast of London, Channel 4 - TV review

Matt Berry has been nominated in six categories at this year's British Comedy Awards, so any gripe about last night's Toast of London series finale (Channel 4) will soon be drowned out by applause. Here's my gripe, anyway: Josh Homme's cameo in "Fool in Love" was exactly the sort of pointless, "meet my famous chums" name-dropping that Toast of London usually skewers so mercilessly. It made for a disappointingly dull denouement to the best sitcom on television.

Radio Times review

Steven Toast is in turmoil - the greatest love of his life, Lorna Wynde, is appearing in The Graduate on the London stage. Toast has never recovered from their break-up, after which he had an unfortunate accident in Oddbins.

The best bits of the final, typically uneven episode are the masterly pastiches of dreadful 1980s American soaps. Toast (Matt Berry) and Wynde (Morgana Robinson) starred together in one such atrocity, but it put an end to her TV career as she went cross-eyed in close-ups.

Steve Pemberton, soon to be seen in Mapp and Lucia on BBC One, plays a very effete Francis Bacon and Josh Homme, lead singer of rock band Queens of the Stone Age, guests as Lorna's jealous husband.

Toast of London, Channel 4, review

I hope we see more of Matt Berry and his co-writer Arthur Mathews's fantasy brand of comedy. Whether that should be with the unlovable but pitiable Toast, I'm not so sure.

Radio Times review

Actor Steven Toast is buried alive on a film set (it's a long story) and flashes back to his wedding day on a Thai beach. His speech to the guests and his bored bride (played by Amanda Donohoe) is a litany of the actors who've wronged him, though he puts this in more choice language: "Colin Firth... Hugh Bonneville... Trevor Eve... Martin Shaw."

In an underpowered, thinly written episode with a sprinkling of good moments, Toast (Matt Berry) is offered a job in a Hollywood movie on the strict understanding he doesn't look at or eat or drink within two miles of its megastar lead actor, Max Gland. And we get a disturbing glimpse into the home life of Toast's agent, Jane Plough (pronounced "Pluff").

Toast of London is the funniest thing on telly, while also being blithering nonsense of the highest order. This week the travails of struggling actor Steven Toast (Matt Berry) involved an acid trip and a very funny running joke about the Masons. There's a bit of Father Ted in Toast -- no surprise, since it was co-created by Arthur Mathews, but it's most reminiscent of the plays what Ernie Wise used to write on The Morecambe and Wise Show. With added orgies.