Rob Brydon

Is Alan Partridge morphing into Tommy Saxondale?

Steve Coogan's inability to escape his most successful character was mined for some of the best material in The Trip, his 2010 collaboration with Rob Brydon and Michael Winterbottom. For a minority however, myself included, it's Tommy Saxondale that's the more complex character and one that has managed to seep, intentionally or otherwise, into the version of Alan Partridge we meet in the 2013 feature-length outing Alpha Papa.

Rob Brydon: I hope MBE was for comedy

Rob Brydon has told the Queen he hoped his recently awarded MBE was more for comedy than charity.

Jack Whitehall's star continues to rise and, rather endearingly, he's inviting his dad along for the ride. Having written a book and done stand-up together, Michael (a theatrical agent) and his son have bagged their own chat show. If the guestlist for tonight's opener is anything to go by, it should be both eclectic and hilarious. Imagine, for example, Jeremy Paxman's face when he was told he would be sharing airtime with Sir Daniel of Dyer?

But a word of warning. It's not the first time a comedian has had their parent on the show. Maybe it's kinder to use Adam & Joe's Bad Dad as the barometer, rather than the presenter's mum on The Matt Lucas Awards. Preceded by a live Whitehall gig at 9pm, Backchat may yet shed the curse of the BBC comedian-led talk-show that has beleaguered everyone from Sarah Millican to Rob Brydon.

Here Be Dragons throws spotlight on new Welsh talent

A new comedy series that showcases Welsh comics following in the footsteps of Rhod Gilbert and Rob Brydon premieres tonight.

Rob Brydon's Stephen Fry suicide attempt joke attacked

Comedians often teeter on the edge between offensiveness and humour, but when Rob Brydon poked fun at his fellow QI star Stephen Fry's suicide attempt during a celebrity awards show his gag was reportedly greeted with silence not laughter.

The Trip: box set review

Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon bicker, bond and compare Michael Caine impressions in this poignant and unusually honest comedy.

Chapters of The Trip (BBC Two), starring Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, are still churning around on the repeat circuit. At a low moment during my viewing week I happened to switch on the show in which the boys unleash their Michael Caine impersonations, and in no time I was feeling better about life.

A wonderfully enjoyable edition opens with Jimmy Carr claiming that he was given coffee in his bottle as a baby and progresses through the idea that Susanna Reid may have held the Breakfast team's speed record for drinking a pint of beer ("How big are your glugs?" enquires host Rob Brydon) and that Dave Myers of The Hairy Bikers once spent Christmas locked inside a bank.

All these prompt enjoyable cross-examination but, as so often, it's David Mitchell's mock-exasperation that really lights the comic touchpaper. "We've been doing this show for a thousand years!" he wails at one point to Lee Mack. "I know everything about you, including the fact that you did not learn to drive in a hearse."