Olivia Colman

Edgy and surreal, peppered with rich deadpan absurdist moments, The Lobster, Jury Prize winner at Cannes offers a hilariously bizarre glance at contemporary mating habits.

In the near future singles check into The Hotel run by the tyrannical Olivia Colman - it's dance and interact but no masturbation with 45 days to find a genuine partner or they're transformed into an animal of their choice.

If lonely architect David (Colin Farrell) can't find a partner he wants to be a lobster. He tries the hotel dances and forays into The Woods to kill Loners but picking the heartless woman (Angelika Papoulia) was a disaster and the man with the limp (Ben Whishaw) and the man with the lisp (John C. Reilly) are only so so pals. David seeks happiness and that's his problem so it's escape into The Woods, obey the Loner's rebel Leader (Lea Seydoux) and fall in love with the previously unseen narrator Rachel Reisz which breaks the rules.

The cast are terrific, The Hotel's spot on but as it moves into The Woods it stretches itself and fumbles somewhat for ideas. Bizarre, absurdly funny, off-the-wall. This is the age of Tinder dating.

The Lobster is a surreal, bleak comedy - with claws

Olivia Colman as the leader of a residential retreat where singletons seek new mates, and get turned into animals if they fail? More artful weirdness from the director of Dogtooth.

Proof Olivia Colman will be in final Peep Show series

Robert Webb and David Mitchell have confirmed that Olivia Colman will be returning as Sophie Chapman in the last ever series of Peep Show.

Miles Jupp would be 'surprised' if Rev returns

Rev star and comic Miles Jupp has said he does not envisage a return of the popular TV comedy Rev, in which he starred with Tom Hollander and Olivia Colman.

Olivia Colman: 'My parents don't like Peep Show'

Olivia Colman has admitted that her parents never loved Peep Show - although they didn't mind the swearing.

Who should win best female comedy performance BAFTA?

Olivia Colman, Tamsin Greig, Jessica Hynes and Catherine Tate battle it out for the award, but who gets your vote?

Baftas 2015: what should win best TV comedy?

With nominations for everything from Mrs Brown's Boys to The Wrong Mans, Olivia Colman for Rev., Jessica Hynes for W1A and Matt Berry in Toast of London, this year's comedy sections are a mix of national treasures and off-putting broadness.

The idea behind Chain Reaction, if you haven't listened (why?), is that last week's interviewee becomes next week's interviewer, so we get a long list of famous people (usually comedians or actors) interviewed by a similar person who they admire or have worked with. Each person's interview technique is very different, so the show is hit and miss. The last two week's programmes, which featured Bob Mortimer interviewing Vic Reeves, and then Vic Reeves talking to Olivia Colman, have been tricky listens. I love Reeves and Mortimer but they don't do interviews, really. When they were together it was funny but utterly random; when Reeves talked to Colman, I had to switch off. He had no questions; he didn't really listen to the answers. Argh! It was frustrating.

This week, Colman talked to Sharon Horgan, and I enjoyed the whole show. Colman managed to take the mickey out of the interviewing process ("Do you have a favourite sibling? Do you have a favourite child?") and also get revealing answers. Revealing of both Horgan and herself, which made up a bit for the week before. So we learned that Colman can't cope with too much to do (and then her husband points out that what she's worrying about could be done in a hour), that Horgan prefers writing to acting, and that despite being born in England she considers herself Irish - "it's very important to me that I'm Irish". The chat brought out the contrast between Horgan's career-minded pragmatism and Colman's family-comes-first attitude. As well as both women's wit. Colman was a great host. Give her a show. Nurture the "talent". Manage it.

Radio Times review

"Do you have a legal list?" Olivia Colman asks her interviewee Sharon Horgan. "Sorry, what's that?" responds Horgan, in answer to which Colman informs her it is a list of people you are allowed to sleep with without your husband getting cross. The audience roars with laughter, which soon increases in volume when an innocent Sharon asks, "Can they be dead?" -- not quite making the necrophilic link implied by her wish to have Steve McQueen on her "legal list".

This gives a flavour of the conversation between these two very funny women. Colman's questions cover topics ranging from work--life balance to the joys of nit-combing a child's hair, and Horgan's wickedly witty responses exemplify why she is at the top of her game at the moment.