Noel Fielding

Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding, otherwise known as The Mighty Boosh, present a two-week exploration of the Monty Python team's comedy LPs - which, predating as they did the home video market, were often the only way that fans could experience sketches and songs that would otherwise have disappeared from memory.

Noel Fielding says that 'Kids are frightened of me'

Taking acid would make me normal, reckons the party boy.

The first series of Chatty Man was a winner and Mariah Carey lets her celebrity hair down (metaphorically speaking) when she has the honour of being Alan's very first A-list guest for the start of his second series. Will Mariah get Alan's waspish sense of humour? Will she even understand him? It promises to be a legendary collision of two worlds, like the time our cuddly host invited Martina Navratilova to join him for a game of swingball.

Mariah's also going to be performing her single I Want To Know What Love Is and plugging her new movie Precious, which is said to be brilliant. By contrast, Alan's other guest, Never Mind The Buzzcocks' captain Noel Fielding, looks like a much safer, more predictable option and it must be the first time he's ever been called that.

Personally, I found Alan Carr's recent statement that gay men make the best chatshow hosts because they are "gossipy" rather annoying - not only because it relies on a particular stereotype, but also because it would imply that Graham Norton is better in the field than Jonathan Ross. For all his faults, Wossy still has the edge on that score. That said, the last series of Carr's show was often hilarious with the right guests. Whether Noel Fielding and Mariah Carey fit into that category, we'll have to wait and see.

This week the pop quiz is the launch pad for the manic wit of regular team captains Noel Fielding and Phill Jupitus, guest host Alex James and panellists Peter Serafinowicz, Holly Walsh, Newton Faulkner and Jessica Origliasso. That means there's a range of comic styles as divergent as this show's musical tastes usually are from the current Top 40.

There's life after Simon Amstell for Buzzcocks

We go behind the scenes at the comedy music quiz, where it's all "flowers and unicorns" according to Noel Fielding.

The music panel show continues as Noel Fielding settles into his new role as permanent team captain opposite the immovable Phill Jupitus. Comedian Rhod Gilbert takes the guest presenter's chair tonight (replacing Simon Amstell who has now left the series). Fielding is joined by sports presenter Gabby Logan and Jeremy Reynolds from trendy electro band Hockey. Facing them is a far more intriguing line-up comprised of Spandau Ballet's Martin Kemp and gravel-voiced comedian Greg Davies, who plays the angry head of sixth form in The Inbetweeners.

Fans of the pop quiz will have been gutted by Simon Amstell's announcement he was quitting to concentrate on his live work. We hoped he was joking - but for once he was deadly serious.

On Amstell's watch Buzzcocks was unmissable weekly irreverence. He read an autocue like nobody's business but the best stuff came off the top of his head - scattering unpredictably like priceless comedy dandruff.

Guest hosts starting with James Corden will helm the new run - but generating that relaxed, free-wheeling chemistry that flourished under Amstell will be tough for anyone dropping in. Noel Fielding, who's been excellent value in the past, becomes a team captain opposite Phill Jupitus.

For those worried that they'd not seen much of James Corden on their screens recently, relax, he's back. He hosts the umpteenth return of Buzzcocks - along with Noel Fielding, who's back as a team captain. The quick-witted Simon Amstell is gone, so now it's a revolving-door host policy, with the ability to read an autocue and laugh generously at unfunny gags by Phill Jupitus the only qualifications that seem to be required. Fine, anything that keeps Mark Lamarr from clawing his way back on to our screens.

Pop World has never been the same since Simon Amstell left. Will Buzzcocks go the same way, particularly now it's going down the rudderless route of guest hosts? In fashioning himself into a TV personality, tonight's host, James Corden, hasn't been quite as funny as he thinks he is. Still, he made a good fist of things as a guest captain last year, and he's not the only newbie trying to impress here: achingly hip Noel Fielding is now a permanent fixture.