Patrick Kielty

Patrick Kielty gives out Christine Bleakley's number

Furious telly beauty Christine Bleakley has had hundreds of calls to her mobile phone - after the number was revealed on-air by Patrick Kielty.

Frankie Boyle's been lanced, Russell Howard's wearing specs, but it's otherwise business as usual for satirical news quiz Mock The Week; a fusion of Have I Got News For You? and Whose Line Is It Anyway?, with irrelevant scoring and a weird mix of rounds that go from sitdown quiz to stand-up performances. It's all a mere conduit for ribpoking of the week's news stories, and MTW is perhaps more consistent than its contemporaries because four of the pannelists are regulars.

The downside of that consistency is that Hugh Dennis stopped being funny in the mid-'90s and Andy Parsons has never been funny, leaving host Dara O'Briain and Russell Howard to shoulder most of the comic burden. And, like a great many modern panel shows, a lot of guests just become glorified audience members, desperate to shoehorn in paraphrased segments of their standup material. This week, Mark Watson coped well as a guest (he's a veteran of this format), Patrick Kielty had the confidence to soldier through any difficulties he encountered, and while Milton Jones sometimes struggled to recycle his material appropriately, he at least didn't just sit back and do nothing. It helps that his stage persona is a spaced-out weirdo, so his weaker moments and slipups could be forgiven as part of his "act".

The top-notch panel show returns with guests Mark Watson, Patrick Kielty and Milton Jones - but how will it fare without the savage brilliance of Frankie Boyle?

Michael McIntyre is uproariously funny. He is also very nice. That he manages to be both simultaneously is testament to his talent. Tonight, his touring stand-up show is recorded in Belfast. Patrick Kielty, a local, is the "headline act". Fellow comedians Neil Delamere, Jeff Green and Kerry Godliman also take turns.

Michael McIntyre's Comedy Roadshow arrives in Belfast, where he introduces the comedians Jeff Green, Neil Delamere and Kerry Godliman. But the biggest welcome of all was saved for local boy Patrick Kielty, who begins his act by talking about the return of sectarian killing. "It's nice to be back in Northern Ireland," he says. "Now that you're up to your old tricks again. We were doing so well. We were like George Best with a new liver." He goes on to explain some of the finer points of Irish politics ("The Real IRA is not the real IRA. The real IRA is the government") before discussing the state of the economy. "The world is skint," he says. "Britain and Ireland - we're the worst. Britain is the tramp at the Link machine with the cup. Ireland, we're the dog on the string." It's the way he tells 'em.

Michael McIntyre bounds around the stage like an overexcited circus ringmaster when his roadshow reaches Belfast. He's remorselessly cheerful (a good thing in a comedian) and relentlessly good-natured as he has gentle fun with audience member Christine Bleakley about the incongruities of The One Show ("I saw Andrew Lloyd Webber talking about knife crime"). And redoubtable Olympic gold-medallist Dame Mary Peters gamely plays along when McIntyre does far from dextrous impressions of her winning sports. But really he's little more than master of ceremonies, this week introducing Jeff Green, who gets some mileage out of being newly married and his wife's love of cushions, a chipper Kerry Godliman, who wonders why baby clothes have pockets, and headliner Patrick Kielty, whose best bit is a funny Facebook version of the Middle East conflict.

Patrick Kielty doesn't just join the regulars in the bargain basement comic debate show this week, he outshines both Marcus Brigstocke and Rufus Hound. You might think that's easy but, after this, Lucy Porter probably doesn't. It's undemanding entertainment for audience and performers alike.

Rather less amusing was Russell Howard's unbroadcast episode of ITV's Tough Gig, a quickly shelved series in which the likes of Frank Skinner, Dara O'Briain and Patrick Kielty hung out with disparate groups of people for a week before performing comedy to them. 'Hopefully, it'll never appear,' Howard mutters. 'I spent a week with these extreme surfers in Ireland and though it was a lot of fun, I was quite naive about how they would edit it. They left out all the fun to give the gig a sense of jeopardy. Luckily, loads of great stories came out of it that ITV couldn't show. One of these surfers' initiation ceremonies is to go to a post office and try to buy pornography, which led to me being bollocked by a very angry old lady.

Patrick Kielty in gun threat

Teenager aimed shooter at comic as he filmed TV show.