Rhys Thomas

Rhys Thomas to star in Channel 4's Naked Apes

Comedy drama about Leeds-based paramedics to air this summer, as will new E4 series Beaver Falls.

It's a quite funny idea - a spoof documentary with Stephen Mangan and Rhys Thomas as a pair of hapless British buddies walking to the north pole, carbon neutrally, to save the planet (and my lawn?). It's marginally more entertaining than watching Ben Fogle and the rowing dude doing this kind of thing for real. I like the rival team, a pair of gay Norwegians who split up as lovers but remain together as a polar exploring team, somewhere around 85 degrees north. And the shooting of a polar bear is fun. But there's too much filling between the laughs - it's really a sketch idea, dragged out to movie length.

Brian Tongue and Mark Bark-Jones, concerned about global warning and hoping to get a bit of Bono and Bob Geldof-style sainthood along the way, are making the world's first carbon neutral, vegetarian, organic expedition to the north pole. Stephen Mangan plays Bark-Jones as the ultimate eco bore, superior, self-pitying and ultimately likable; while Rhys Thomas's carefree Brian Tongue appears to be going along for the ride. The irreverent, comic tone is judged well - until the sentimental ending goes and ruins it all. Helen Baxendale makes a cameo as the sympathetic film-maker following the pair.

BBC Comedy Online: It's Pernweek!

Brian Pern, the ageing rock musician created by Rhys Thomas and played by Simon Day (both of whom you may recognise from The Fast Show and Bellamy's People), is returning for a new series this Friday.

Nobody watches BBC3 comedy pilots with total confidence, and with no preview DVD available, we haven't watched this one at all. But it has pedigree. Rhys Thomas, the straight-man star of Bellamy's People, writes and stars in a studio sitcom about police community support officers who want to be real cops, and who constantly derail investigations they shouldn't even be involved in. Years ago, Thomas had a minor cult hit with Fun at the Funeral Parlour - this sounds broader and more accessible. Look out for Denis Lawson as the chief constable.

Just how many characters do Whitehouse, Higson and co have up their sleeves? Last week saw this BBC2 comedy really hit its groove, with a theme of what makes Britain "great" bringing shape to largely improvised comedy. Whitehouse channelled Jon Gaunt for his rent-a-gob DJ and Higson introduced his testy history professor, both playing brilliant off Rhys Thomas' straight man. But the underrated Felix Dexter and Simon Day are this show's unsung heroes - the latter's Alan Bennettpesque poet's verse on "ethnic" cuisine was both laugh-out-loud funny and oddly poignant.

Not the best of the satirical run but bound to raise a wry smile or two. This week, we find Bellamy (Rhys Thomas) hitting the road to investigate what has happened to the United Kingdom's reputation for good manners.

Interviews with the usual Little Britain-ish characters culminate in a toe-curling ­showdown between Paul Whitehouse's England-shorts wearing painter and decorator Martin Hole - and an aggrieved traffic warden.

To make Thursdays a bit more bearable, BBC2 has filled 90 minutes with comedy. I am rather partial to Bellamy's People, in which the award-winning Gary Bellamy (he is slightly shifty about which award) meets appallingly probable people.

Bringing this Radio 4 comedy (it was then called Down the Line) to TV has cost it some of its mojo. That said, there are funny moments to savour. These include pub bore Chris Nibbs's (Charlie Higson) assertion that British greatness is epitomised by the ability to produce a fine custard cream. Also amusing is Simon Day's cockney villain threatening extreme violence if Gary Bellamy (Rhys Thomas) looks him in the eye.

In the second episode of Paul Whitehouse and Charlie Higson's comedy, the fictitious Radio 4 talk-show host, Gary Bellamy (Rhys Thomas) has left the studio to meet some of his listeners, ostensibly to find out what it means to be British. In reality it's just a good excuse to showcase a terrific stream of comic performances, each of which is brilliantly observed. Tonight, there's a hotel-management student who reveres the land of Shakespeare and Jimmy Savile, a posh architect from the Cotswolds who happens to be black, a brigadier and colonel representing the face of the modern British Army ("We're primarily concerned with building bridges") and, best of all, a poet and national treasure from Yorkshire who seems remarkably familiar.