Matt Lucas

Lucas quits Shooting Stars quiz

Little Britain star Matt Lucas has said he will not be appearing in the new series of Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer's BBC show Shooting Stars.

In round two, more jokers try to outwit each other: zany stand-up Josie Long, comic writer Robert Popper and - the most impudent by far - actor David Schneider. Success will be rewarded with a "Lucas" - the newest, most arbitrary award around, named after jovial host Matt Lucas. Tonight he's after nominations for the most incomprehensible British accent, least practical pet and best war. That's if his guests can get a gag in edgeways: Lucas can't help jumping in with rib-tickling anecdotes, while selecting winners even more random than his categories. Not that we're complaining; this knocks the socks off the average, smug awards do.

Matt Lucas (Little Britain, Shooting Stars) with a new panel game. It's an awards show, the Lucases being awarded for the best, worst, ugliest, scariest, etc. Tonight's guests, comedian Katy Brand, actor and writer James Corden (Gavin & Stacey) and TV writer Graham Linehan (the immortal Father Ted, the sublime Black Books and the underrated The IT Crowd) nominate contenders then hand out Lucases for The Lamest Excuse of All Time, Most Pointless Member of the Royal Family and Greatest Song By a Musical Artist Who Is Otherwise Rubbish.

Matt Lucas slims down on doctor's orders

Eight months after he was ordered by doctors to go on a drastic diet, comedian Matt Lucas is cutting a dramatically thinner figure these days.

Matt Lucas hosts And the Winner is...

Have you won an award - a BAFTON or a Golden Globo perhaps? Well you may as well just throw it in the bin as it is now useless. The only award worth getting from now on will be a Lucas award (see above).

Matt Lucas: 'I feel very vulnerable'

"Apart from one-off specials, there are no plans for any more series of Little Britain, either here or in the US, but when I ask if he'd grown bored of it, he answers before I've even got the question out..."

What the returning Shooting Stars lacks in novelty, it makes up for in undiminished surrealism. Tonight's guests include Ricky Wilson from the Kaiser Chiefs and Jack Dee ("Your face is like an abandoned walnut. Like a doomed horse"), but it's the enduring madness of the hosts that entertains. Within mere moments, Vic has arrested a jazz pancake and shot it with a clarinet. Even regulars Ulrika Jonsson and drumming baby George Dawes (Matt Lucas) look surprised.

Even if you don't happen to enjoy the surreal exuberance of this wacky game show, there are consolations. Principal among them is the mournful presence of Jack Dee. With a face like a doomed horse he does nothing other than pretend to look miserable. It's a classic example of "less is more" - whenever the camera focuses on his gloom, it's like an ice-pack applied to a migraine. Matt Lucas continues to give a magnificent panto performance as the drum-playing baby. But once again, the show stopper is the new regular guest Dan Skinner as a burger-bar owner. You can almost smell the rancid fat clinging to his clothes.

What the returning Shooting Stars lacks in novelty, it makes up for in undiminished surrealism. Tonight's guests include Ricky Wilson from the Kaiser Chiefs and Jack Dee ("Your face is like an abandoned walnut. Like a doomed horse"), but it's the enduring madness of the hosts that entertains. Within mere moments, Vic has arrested a jazz pancake and shot it with a clarinet. Even regulars Ulrika Jonsson and drumming baby George Dawes (Matt Lucas) look surprised.