Michael Winner

Robert Webb, actor and comedian, opens the diary he kept when he was 17 for the benefit of host (and comedian) Rufus Hound and an enthralled audience. His entries include one about going to a party and kissing a girl he didn't really fancy. I always listen to this programme, now in its fourth series. But I often wonder whether a real conversation with the diaries' authors (who have included Meera Syal, Sheila Hancock, Michael Winner and Julian Clary) would produce something more satisfying than some wisecracks from Hound and lots of easy audience laughs.

New panel game, the premise of which is to see how well the contestants know their nearest and dearest. Rachel Johnson, Des Lynam and Mark Steel will each nominate a chosen relative or friend to whom, privily, a list of questions will be put. Chairman Miles Jupp will then test the panel's knowledge by asking them to predict what answers the nominees gave. Sounds oddly similar, perhaps, to those old TV games that came with loud buzzers, manic studio audiences and major prizes. No prizes though for guessing this week's celebrity guest, Michael Winner.

It seems unlikely that the ultimate question to the ultimate answer to life, the universe and everything is: "How many series of Have I Got News for You have there been?" But this week saw the start of the 42nd series.

Jo Brand hosted the first episode back, with Victoria Coren alongside Ian Hislop and Graham Linehan with Paul Merton. When I learnt about the line-up my immediate reaction was, "Thank God!" It's something of a rarity for HIGNFY to have a line-up consisting of people who are all essentially humorists. No politicians, no journalists, just people who are paid to be funny for a living. That is who we want. It's generally one of the advantages that Mock the Week has over HIGNFY, in that all the people on MTW are nearly always comics.

Everyone on this week's show had their moments, whether it's Coren on her hatred of cat lovers, Linehan's in-depth knowledge of Twitter, or Merton suggesting confusion between Michael Winner smoking a cigar and a picture of a seagull doing a poo. What a wonderfully awful image.

However, the best bit was that this episode was the first in a while which didn't make any lazy jokes about Eric Pickles being fat. It won't last...

For a precocious 17-year-old from Letchworth, the USA seemed a spellbinding place crying out to be explored. Bucking the parochial grip of 1953 Britain, Michael Winner crossed the Pond and dutifully documented his eye-opening experiences, which he shares here with Rufus Hound'. You can see the germ of the raconteur and go-getter in these engaging diary entries which bristle with wit and youthful arrogance - "New York is a shallow, brash city" - traits he undoubtedly used to get to meet Eddie Fisher and Duke Ellington, though it's not wholly clear how. But there was nothing opaque about America's shocking racism, as a bewildered Winner observed.

Michael Winner proves shrewdly adept at self-deprecation. He only ever kept one diary, he tells host Rufus Hound, of a student trip he took to America in 1953 in his late teens, when it was a remote and romantic destination and the only plane route was via Iceland. As he reads from it here he keeps up a constant critique of his younger self for showing off, being arrogant, dumb. But he was already a published writer, having had a syndicated column since he was 14. No wonder he seemed so blasé about New York. "Pathetic, really," he says. But funny.

On the face of it, the formula for Would I Lie to You? is almost insultingly simple - celebs and comedians revealing daft things about themselves that may or may not be true. As formats go, it's a feather duster, an airy nothing. Yet there's no other panel game on TV that so reliably creases you up. It helps when the chemistry between the guests comes together, as it does in tonight's opener for the fourth series. When guest Martin Clunes teases Richard E Grant over the latter's not-very-plausible claim to have recorded a dance version of a Shakespeare soliloquy, it feels like old friends sharing a joke. Even when nobody really believes a given tale - such as that Fern Britton briefly worked in the Post Office or that Sanjeev Bhaskar once crashed into Michael Winner's car - the fusillades of good-natured mockery are great fun. And to add to the fun tonight, there's a little hint of aggro between Clunes and host Rob Brydon.

The best factoid in this show is that when he appeared in an episode of Inspector Morse, Martin Clunes deliberately called him "Cheese Inspector". That's not even one of the fibs in this week's show - it's just one of the inbetween bits of banter that gets chucked in for free. And the return of this series ratchets up the laughter quotient of Friday nights on the BBC (and Martin Clunes' career, come to that) by roughly four million per cent.

It makes you realise that all those years Clunes has spent stomping around ­Cornwall as the grumpy Doc Martin, pretending to be Reggie Perrin or making ­documentaries about dogs have been a waste of his talents. What he should really have been doing is spending his time larking about with his mates on comedy panel shows because I've never seen him enjoy himself as much as he does here.

It all adds up to a brilliant start to the series with team captains David Mitchell and Lee Mack conjuring perfect comebacks out of thin air. Host Rob Brydon's impromptu impersonations add an extra coat of comedy emulsion to an already ­sparkling format. Tonight's other guests, Richard E Grant and Sanjeev Bhaskar put on their best butter-wouldn't-melt faces as they swear blind that they once rear-ended Michael Winner and made a hip-hop Hamlet. And is Fern Britton really a secret Morris Dancer?

For several years Miranda Hart has been cheerfully stealing scenes from under the noses of her more illustrious co-stars, so it was only a matter of time before TV producers rewarded her with a comedy series of her own.

Episode one of Miranda would appear to justify their faith. It has a genuine sense of fun, a distinct style, several very sharp lines and some cleverly constructed set-pieces. But, God, it was manic. In the words of Michael Winner in that memorably atrocious insurance advert: "Calm down, dear."

Hart, who also wrote the script, works very hard for her laughs, but an occasional change of pace would have been very welcome. It might also have afforded a little breathing space for some character development, which was in seriously short supply. A disproportionate amount of the jokes were predicated on Hart's size, which, personally, I don't find particularly disproportionate.

When not addressing the camera, Hart is busy bantering with joke shop co-owner Stevie (Sarah Hadland), being socially inept and lusting after hunky chef Gary (Tom Ellis) who, in an interesting reversal of traditional sitcom gender objectifying, is underwritten to the point of non-existence. Hart is much more generous towards her female co-stars, providing Patricia Hodge and Sally Phillips with the opportunity to do some scene-stealing of their own as neurotic mother and bitchy best friend respectively.

Watching this new series of fivestar shenanigans is like drowning, slowly, in a vat of Asti Spumante. It's delicious and cool and frothy, but a little voice at the back of your head keeps telling you that it can't really be doing you any good. And all those bubbles do get up your nose after a while.

Tonight Honor Blackman has a ball camping it up outrageously as a batty movie siren while Tony Robinson takes a break from peering into muddy holes on C4 to play a man who once stole a gangster's wife. And as Anna goes into labour tonight, you might want to compare her childbirth scene with that of Maria's over on Corrie. Anna sailed through her pregnancy in pencil skirts and killer heels and the birth is no less glamourous.

But the series might be about to lose a little of its glitz as actress Emma Pierson and her baby check out tonight - once the identity of the baby's father has finally been revealed. You will be relieved to hear that it's not guest star Michael Winner.