Nick Clegg

Preview - The Last Leg: Re-United Kingdom

Inspired by the courageous MP, Jo Cox, tonight's extended episode of The Last Leg, is dedicated to all her hard work and beliefs.

Arriving for a 52nd series, HIGNFY has rarely been more welcome. Over the next 11 weeks, Ian Hislop and Paul Merton will, as ever, captain the teams skewering the increasing ludicrousness of world affairs. They'll be running over the US presidential election, too, which is likely to provide ample quarry for some terrifying hilarity. Nick Clegg has a go in the host's chair, while Kevin Bridges is one of the week's guest panellists.

Adam Hills on Piers Morgan, Nick Clegg & Ed Miliband

Hills returns with co-hosts Josh Widdicombe and Alex Brooker and, as well as admitting the show can come together as close as half an hour before broadcast, he dished on everything from his bromance with guest and former Deputy PM Nick Clegg, to almost unbooking Piers Morgan...

How fabulous to have an episode of Have I Got News For You, filmed as election news was still coming in (Friday, BBC1). With all the demob feeling of "EastEnders go to Marbella", this had a real frisson of the improvised. There was a certain catharsis to be had hearing Ian Hislop officially voicing what everyone had been talking about all day: "Everyone said it was unpredictable. Because they'd got it wrong."

And the live quality really added something: "Can I just tell you something? It is the end of Farage." "Can we stop for a minute? Nick Clegg has resigned." Line of the night went to Romesh Ranganathan, on the failure of Mori and the like: "Farage has been banging on about not trusting the Poles for ages ..." And is there any reason why Jo Brand shouldn't be the permanent host?

Radio Times review

Can TV's best topical comedy keep that mantle in the midst of election fever? It's a challenge, even for the excellent Adam Hills and his two sidekicks, Alex Brooker and Josh Widdicombe.

Brooker pre-empted the worst excesses of the race for Downing Street earlier this year by conducting a genuinely enlightening interview with Nick Clegg, during which any answer deemed to be "bulls**t" was met with a klaxon. It's safe to say that despite Brooker's efforts, plenty of the smelly stuff has crept into the campaign on all sides as 7 May has drawn closer. The trio's signature brand of satire without cynicism could be just what we need.

As is always the way with sketch shows like Newzoids there were some hits and misses but on the whole there were more of the former than the latter. The highlights of episode one were North Korean light entertainment vehicle 'The Un Show' and a very funny sketch involving Andy Murray's wedding night. One thing I appreciated about Newzoids was the fact that it was written quite close to transmission so that the majority of the skits felt topical. At the same time this sometimes felt like more than hindrance than a help with the writing team picking a story then trying to work a joke around it. A prime example of this was the use of Nigel Farage's controversial comments at the leaders' debate which the writers turned into a stand-up comedy routine. This felt like an incredibly ill-judged sketch that wasn't as cutting edge as the writers thought it would be and instead it just felt a bit crass. I don't think Newzoids will have the same impact as Spitting Image partly because of the fact that it's going out at 9pm on Wednesday night. Whilst Spitting Image had somewhat of a cult appeal, Newzoids appears to be going for a more mainstream audience which is exemplified by the focus on the Jeremy Clarkson firing from a couple of weeks' ago. The attacks on the three main party leaders also felt a little tame with Ed Milliband's failure to eat a bacon sandwich and Nick Clegg's claims of abuse being two more examples of weak sketches. But I'm going to give Newzoids the benefit of the doubt for now as it must be hard to write a show of this nature and there were some sketches that gave me hope that Newzoids could at least turn into something that would be worth checking out on a weekly basis.

Adam Hills, Alex Brooker and Josh Widdicombe have got Friday night satire right; matey instead of aloof, heartfelt instead of withering; and, because the presenters visibly enjoy each other's company and aren't competing, far less stilted than such a heavily scripted show ought to be. They don't feel like part of the well-oiled daily debate machine, so their points stick and miracles happen: viewers' tweets aren't annoying! Nick Clegg looked human when he was on! Sarah Millican guests as another annoyingly short series ends.

Juliette Burton interview

Comedy performer Juliette Burton was recently invited to Whitehall to meet Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg at an event giving out awards to 'Mental Health Heroes'.

Adam Hills reviews Nick Clegg's performance

Adam Hills, the presenter of The Last Leg, an anarchic chat show that recently played host to the Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg, reviews his appearance.

Button that makes political interviews worth watching

Alex Brooker's Channel 4 encounter with Nick Clegg was a model of how to talk normally to a politician - and make them talk normally back.