Noel Edmonds

'A loveable anarchist': The oral history of Mr Blobby

We chart the birth, death and unlikely resurrection of British TV's most unhinged chaos merchant.

7 clips that prove Chris Morris's also a musical genius

Looking back at Morris's body of work, 20 years after the first episode of Brass Eye was broadcast on January 29, 1997, it's clear that few people have combined music and comedy quite as successfully. Whether he's creating strung-out ambient music for a short film about a talking dog or parodying Eminem to highlight the media hysteria surrounding paedophilia, Morris's use of music strikes the balance between creating black comedy and something that's actually listenable. Below are seven of his finest music moments - just be careful not to find yourself jazzing to the bleep tone of a life support machine.

Alan Carr and Noel Edmonds to host new Saturday show?

Telly host Alan Carr is teaming up with even chattier man Noel Edmonds for a new flagship show. Channel 4 chiefs are plotting a Saturday Night Takeaway - of viewers from ITV's hit show hosted by Ant & Dec.

Sarah Millican to host special Deal Or No Deal

Deal Or No Deal is to celebrate its tenth birthday on Channel 4 with a surprise twist for host Noel Edmonds - he will be playing the game while Sarah Millican is to be the guest host.

Rude, crude and very likable pilot sitcom from BBC Scotland, concerning a hapless team of mountain rescue volunteers, navigating the likes of "genocide gully". The reference point here might be Father Ted, with its oddball parochialism and unhinged cast of characters, including "poundshop Noel Edmonds" Jimmy Miller (Jimmy Chisholm), Bill, who helps find corpses ("I'm no stranger to a frostbitten leg in a Waitrose bag"), and a pub, The Busted Femur, whose interior suggests "a morgue had sex with an old folks' home". More please!

Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith focus their demonic gaze on celebrity worship and human greed. Tamsin Greig runs an outfit that makes dreams come true for sick children. If a little boy with cerebral palsy wants to play chees with Noel Edmonds, she will organise it. Here she arranges for the pop star Frankie J Parsons to come to the birthday party of a terminally ill little girl. After blowing up a balloon, he keels over - and the balloon filled with his dying breath is worth far more than the kidney stone sold by William Shatner for $25,000. "That's sick!" explains the appalled mother (Sophie Thompson). "The world is sick" replies her husband (Pemberton).

Radio Times review

This second episode, about the "middle ages" of rock, is even funnier than the first - especially if you're sufficiently middle aged to understand all the 70s and 80s references. There's a greater emphasis on doctored archive footage than on semi-improvised skits this time, but we're treated to an appearance from Noel Edmonds, while Red Dwarf's Danny John-Jules pops up thinly disguised as the ubiquitous Nile Rodgers.

Tom Jones's interminable note-hold and Phil Collins massacring Stairway to Heaven are particular highlights. Be warned, however: there's some fruity language; from Nigel "potty mouth" Havers no less.

One of the major hazards was averted last night when Celebrity Juice's Christmas Special was screened early - but if a teenage relative unwraps a Keith Lemon box set under the tree and you cannot escape, here's how to cope.

Lemon is a gameshow host played by comedian Leigh Francis - he's grindingly upbeat and thick as walrus blubber. Imagine Keith Chegwin with the swear filter switched off, and you've got him. His act is a stream of four-letter words and single entendres, while his guests grin fixedly through the humiliation.

Lemon's panel game, Celebrity Juice, is a cross between a chat show and the Seventies children's romp Tiswas.

The highlight of the Christmas Special was Peter Andre getting coloured gunk poured over his head. Even Noel Edmonds has grown out of that kind of TV.

My advice is to keep your paper party hat to hand. If you do get trapped into watching this dross, pull it down over your eyes and pretend to be asleep.

Mumsy comedian Sarah Millican brings her surprisingly filthy brand of humour to bear on this mix of chat and stand-up. Tonight Millican is joined by Noel Edmonds, who discusses the intricacies of long-running game show Deal or No Deal. Magician Pete Firman completes the line-up, and teaches Millican some tricks of the trade.

Professionally, Kenny Everett has much to answer for. The DJ's anarchic innovations in broadcasting inspired everyone from Noel Edmonds to Chris Moyles to conjure up their own increasingly inferior versions. Personally, too, his life was chaotic, with years spent trying to reconcile the fact that he loved his wife but 'fancied Burt Reynolds'. Tim Whitnall's affectionate, even-handed biopic ties the two together beautifully, tracing the erstwhile Maurice Cole's career of delighting the public and cocking a snook at authority while edging, with considerable difficulty, out of the closet. It most obviously invokes BBC4's Python meta-biopic Holy Flying Circus, messing around with dramatic convention and reduces the fourth wall to rubble courtesy of Everett's army of alter egos. Katherine Kelly lends sympathetic, nuanced support as Kenny's wife, Lee Middleton, but really, this is The Oliver Lansley Television Show. Lansley - previously a jobbing comic actor - simply is Everett, in all his needy, contrary, charismatic brilliance. No lazy caricature, this is total immersion. A Bafta nomination is the least he deserves - it's a stunning performance.