Matt Lucas

You want this fantasy spoof to succeed, you really do. The cast is good: Matt Lucas can be funny, India de Beaufort is beautiful and the rest of them have some solid work behind them. And the good news is that it mostly hits the target. The bad news is that it mostly aims for late-period Mel Brooks. The strokes are broader than Mr Tickle's breaststroke.

The One to Watch: Thursday 11 June

Krod Mandoon and the Flaming Sword of Fire (BBC Two): Little Britain's Matt Lucas and former EastEnder Sean Maguire star in this a new comedy series about the adventures of a reluctant hero and his band of inept band of freedom fighters.

Matt Lucas on fame, body image and relationships

Bald at 6, a father in prison... Matt Lucas's childhood could read as a misery memoir. Yet it wasn't quite like that. Here he talks frankly about family, fame, body image and relationships, and how, with comedy as his weapon, he's emerged a thoroughly grounded man who couldn't be more unlike the gallery of grotesques he's so famous for creating.

Matt Lucas interview

Ahead of his new BBC series Krod Mandoon and the Flaming Sword of Fire, the comic Matt Lucas talks hairy underpants and world domination.

You may think that rock and roll musicians in particular are in no need of being satirised, as they do the job pretty well themselves. Well, that doesn't mean they aren't ripe for a bit of a ribbing. Matt Lucas, himself no stranger to making the michael out of rock gods with David Walliams in Rock Profile on BBC2, hosts this chronological countdown of the best of the mickey-takers.

Step forward Neil Innes with his tales of Rutlemania; Harry Shearer, who turns the amp all the way up to 11 with Spinal Tap (surely the definite send-up/homage) and the Hee Bee Gee Bees... remember Meaningless Songs (in Very High Voices)? They had Angus Deayton among their number but got Richard Curtis to write the lyrics. Not bad.

Quite why Stella Street is here is a bit of a mystery to me - just because Phil Cornwell and John Sessions get to practise their Mick and Keef voices doesn't make it satire.

Plenty of great music, a few lightly tossed anecdotes and - voila! - an hour of high-quality entertainment.

Thumb up or thumb down? I'm going to be really courageous and go with a... thumb sideways.

There's definitely some funny stuff here, but not nearly enough; also, some first-rate comic actors, too, like Matt Lucas (Little Britain USA) and Sean Maguire - he's Krod - is good here too. It's a nearly-all-Brit cast, and as you know, the Brits do genre satire better 'n anyone else in the solar system... the holy grail being Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

As mentioned, Matt Lucas as the evil Chancellor Dongalor is the standout; also good, Philly comic Kevin Hart as hapless magician Zezelryck.

But the series needs to be funnier, much funnier. Maybe in time...

Shooting Stars 'back in autumn'

Surreal comedy quiz show Shooting Stars will return to the BBC this autumn, according to its stars Vic Reeves and Matt Lucas.

Reeves, 50 - real name Jim Moir - told the Daily Express the show would return with Ulrika Jonsson and Jack Dee as team hosts.

Iranu indeed: Shooting Stars is back

Reeves and Mortimer's anarchic game show Shooting Stars is to return for a full series on BBC2 following a one-off special last Christmas.

Vic and Bob will be reunited with the team captains from the Christmas special, Ulrika Johnson and newcomer Jack Dee, for the 6 x 30-minute series. Matt Lucas is also onboard as drumming man-baby George Dawes.

Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer first hosted their anarchic celebrity quiz show in 1993. The first of two programmes marking the show's 15th anniversary tonight is a documentary about the making of it - and, like Shooting Stars itself, the film is funny, eccentric and a little self-indulgent. Interspersed with interviews with some of the celebrities who found themselves subjected to Reeves' and Mortimer's particular kind of comedy (which veered from the surreal to the mildly offensive), the presenters themselves play various crew members reminiscing about their time working behind the scenes. This is a suitably unique way to contemplate a programme which Martine McCutcheon calls 'bizarre' and of which Larry Hagman said, "I've done some loony shows in my time but this is certainly the one."

Shooting Stars launched the career of Matt Lucas - who played scorekeeper George Dawes before he went on to global fame with David Walliams in Little Britain - and latterly also co-starred the often self-confessedly drunken comic Johnny Vegas.

A largely successful US spin off. I'm not sure that having Sebastian as the British Prime Minister works all that well and the Vicky Pollard stuff hasn't been great, but there's still much to enjoy.