Natalie Cassidy

Tim Vine & soap stars win first round of Let's Dance

Comedian Tim Vine and a quartet of soap stars - including Natalie Cassidy and Dean Gaffney - triumphed in the first round of Let's Dance For Comic Relief 2013 as the series got underway.

The impressions show with Morgana Robinson and Terry Mynott continues. The mimicry is good, especially Mynott's, but what they've found to say about their targets is disappointingly bland. Russell Brand talks like this. Natalie Cassidy's a bit dumpy. It's not enough. And there's got to be a less clunky way of introducing impressions than: "I'm Gordon Ramsay." We know. And if we can't tell, don't do the impression. Like so much that has gone before, VIP falls into the "sometimes clever but not that funny" category.

The showpiece of Channel 4's new Friday night comedy line-up is a brand new impressions show.

Morgana Robinson appears with one of her co-stars from The Morgana Show, Terry Mynott - a comedy actor so unfamous he doesn't even have his own Wikipedia page yet.

But he absolutely steals this first episode with his spot-on take of the BBC's favourite groovy scientist Professor Brian Cox, posing in front of areas of natural beauty wearing high street brands.

It's the voice that makes it so funny - and it's a parody that's cutting but sweetly affectionate too.

I doubt though that Bear Grylls will be as pleased with the job they've done on him as he tries to survive in the suburbs.

Mynott's take on David Attenborough explaining the lifestyle of Frankie Boyle is another zinger.

Behind the rubber masks, it can be hard to tell who's doing who.

Morgana impersonates men too. Her Russell Brand isn't a patch on her Natalie Cassidy, though.

You can't help being trepidatious about this new impressions show. It's focused on the trashier end of celebrity, it stars Morgana Robinson and Terry Mynott, who received mixed reviews for The Morgana Show, and the fact that it's a new impressions show is worrying in itself.

Much of Very Important People is indeed cheap and derivative, leaning heavily on gaps filled with swearing and, in the case of doing Brian Cox as a preening fop, jokes that were dead and gone 12 months ago. But I must admit that Robinson's takes on Frankie Boyle, Danny Dyer and Natalie Cassidy had me spluttering merrily.

From Spitting Image to Dead Ringers, satirising powerful public figures through mischievous impressions has been a popular shtick among British comedians. But Channel 4's new sardonically named sketch show, led by able newcomers Morgana Robinson and Terry Mynott, subverts the familiar blueprint. Like Bo Selecta's less surreal cousin, it opts to target C to Z-listers - products of ITV2 celebrity filler, the blogosphere and reality TV.

By design, this is a dangerous game, often relying on an audience obsessed with the kind of inane "celebrity" culture it seeks to send up. So while it's just about possible to relate to a sketch involving ex-EastEnder Natalie Cassidy in a faux reality show called I'm Doing This Now - "just hosing down the bins, really" - a mocked-up musical with Joe Swash and Stacey Solomon falls flat.

Ultimately, it's the humour involving better-known subjects - including uncanny impersonations of Gordon Ramsay and David Attenborough - which keeps Very Important People afloat. It's a brave experiment, taking a deserved swipe at vacuous popular culture norms. But will people see the funny side?

The likeable Liverpudlian comedian continues to explore themes by mixing stand-up with sketches and vox pops. This week's subject is family, with ex-EastEnder Natalie Cassidy joining Bishop to discuss parenthood. This show's slipped under the radar somewhat, being buried in the quiet summer schedules, but has proved watchable enough and Bishop probably deserves another shot in an improved format.