Robbie Coltrane

Purveyors of elegant pastiche for almost 30 years, The Comic Strip - aka writer/director Peter Richardson - mixed recent political history with British post-war thriller to produce The Hunt For Tony Blair.

Loosely based upon The Thirty Nine Steps, with a multitude of other film references thrown in for good measure, it told of how the former Labour prime minister became a fugitive from the law following the invasion of Iraq, WMD fiasco and attempted assassination of a stage memory man.
Atmospherically enhanced by the stark black and white photography, The Hunt For Tony Blair was characteristically well crafted, continually clever, crammed with comic details and energetically paced. Over an hour's duration the conceit was stretched pretty thin, subtlety frequently went as AWOL as Blair, and there was a noticeable absence of belly laughs, but The Comic Strip once again proved its pedigree as one of British TV comedy's truly class acts.

Stephen Mangan, managing a very creditable vocal impersonation, starred as a bright eyed, bushy tailed and cheerfully amoral Blair, who also provided a suitably disingenuous narration. No Alexei Sayle, alas, but the rest of The Comic Strip repertory company were present and correct in a variety of supporting roles. Even swathed beneath layers of costume and make up, Rik Mayall was instantly recognizable by his shameless overacting, but it was Nigel Planer who stole the show as an oleaginous Peter Mandelson or, as investigating officer DI Hutton (Robbie Coltrane) preferred to call him, "Squealer".

The only false note was when the story quite literally went off the beaten track to visit Margaret Thatcher's country retreat, shared with obsequious butler Tebbitt and a skeleton in the closet that turned out to be Denis. Jennifer Saunders played Thatcher, having already played Meryl Streep playing Margaret Thatcher in The Comic Strip's Strike. In a perverse and curious case of life imitating art, the real Meryl Streep is soon to be seen as Thatcher in a feature film called The Iron Lady.

Nearly 30 years after their debut, the famous alternative comic troupe returns to Channel 4. Here, new boy Stephen Mangan plays Tony Blair as a film noir-style fugitive from justice, on the run after he's been accused of murder, in a piece that's like Hitchcock's 39 Steps crossed with Kind Hearts and Coronets-style black humour. Alongside him are the old regulars from The Comic Strip's previous films: Nigel Planer as Peter Mandelson, Robbie Coltrane as the detective on Blair's case, with appearances by Harry Enfield and Rik Mayall. Jennifer Saunders almost steals the show by playing Margaret Thatcher as a sexually predatory version of Miss Havisham. At the edge of acceptable taste - is it too early to make humour out of the death of Robin Cook? - "The Hunt for Tony Blair" puts a smile on your face even if there are not many laugh-out-loud moments. This is largely thanks to Mangan's turn as a smooth killer always ready with a voice-over justification about the "tough choices" he has to make, even when murdering an Old Labour homeless man. But despite its satirical digs at our old PM, Mangan's charming performance serves as a reminder of how likeable Blair once was.

So as The Comic Strip has been revived, it makes a certain sense that the result is a decade-mashing melange which tells a warped version of Tony Blair's PM years, taking place in an anachronistic Britain which looks like the 1950s, ripping off The 39 Steps, Sunset Boulevard, The Godfather and, understandably, The Comic Strip themselves. Or rather, Peter Richardson, for though never reaching the same heights as his former colleagues, the director pretty much was The Comic Strip. He's brought back some of the old crew, including Rik Mayall, Robbie Coltrane, Nigel Planer and John Sessions.

For some, the intentionally over the top nonsense of Blair going on the run from 'Inspector Hutton of Scotland Yard' after faking evidence for the Iraq War - complete with lines like "It felt like the whole world was against me, apart from Barbara Windsor of course" - will not be enough to excuse the spoof from its nastier accusations: Blair's shown murdering John Smith and Robin Cook, while Thatcher (played by Jennifer Saunders, naturally) is a monstrous Norma Desmond luring him to bed.

Yes, this isn't exactly sophisticated satire, but it is surprisingly funny in places, with Stephen Mangan capturing Blair's wide-eyed insouciance. While it references the 50s visually, it actually evokes nostalgia for the 80s, when having a childish pop at the people in power felt dangerous - like it could genuinely change things. And the darkest comic line is a real one: "Hey, in the end, only God and history can judge me," says Tony.

Not so much scene as scene-stealer of the week was undoubtedly Robbie Coltrane, single-handedly lifting Lead Balloon (BBC2), the rather smart yet unaccountably underrated Jack Dee thing, into a new stratosphere.

How much would you want to be held hostage in a prison library by heavy jailbird Coltrane, who only wanted to like you and viscerally psychoanalyse you? I can think of worse things, chief among them having to ever watch any more of that thing called The Marriage Ref on ITV on Saturdays, utter hound (the original, produced in the US by Jerry Seinfeld, was also an utter hound and, blissfully, allows me to say that I was smart for never understanding the niche of Seinfeld).

Jack Dee, the person, actually looked physically scared in front of Robbie Coltrane, the person. I can understand. I once gave Coltrane my favourite clutch-pencil because he expressed a faint interest in it. Dee's fabulously picaresque pizza order, done under similar scared-boy circumstances, sent, when eaten, Coltrane to sleep. Allowed Dee to escape for another episode: and, I would hope, another series.

Robbie Coltrane in Lead Balloon brilliance

Those lucky enough to reside within range of a BBC Two signal last night, hopefully, saw a brilliant episode from the new season of the genius British comedy series, Lead Balloon, starring Jack Dee. In an apples and oranges kind of scenario, this reminded me of last years "Rope" episode from Psychoville in that it was not only innovative television, but pushed the boundaries of an ongoing series from a creative standpoint to a level that showcases the creative genius of the series.

After his wonderfully shocking introduction last week, lurching into the final shot with a shiv, Robbie Coltrane returns to hold Jack Dee's Rick Spleen hostage - he even gets co-headline billing in the opening titles. It's good to see him back on the box; he's always a huge presence on the small screen, and not just because of his immense girth. They're trapped together in the prison library and all that he wants from Spleen is some honest conversation, so having an inveterate liar as a hostage may prove problematic.

Let's be honest. This series of Lead Balloon has gone down just about as well as its title would suggest and it's time it was quietly retired for good.

But tonight is different. Jack Dee's whiny anti-hero Rick Spleen is taken hostage in a prison library by category-A, knife-wielding inmate Donald. The episode is a two-hander between them.

The prisoner is played by Robbie Coltrane and, while there's nothing scary about being held hostage by Hagrid, Coltrane effortlessly shows up Jack Dee's limitations as an actor and Rick Spleen's inadequacies as a human being.

Within minutes he's discovered that all of Rick's problems - in fact the whole premise of Lead Balloon - stems from his compulsion to lie.

It's a brilliantly written episode, all in all. So much so that what we'd like to see next is a spin-off series for Coltrane in which he decides to drop in on an assortment of other television shows to helpfully point out where other folk are going wrong.

Interview: Robbie Coltrane, actor and comedian

Cracker has turned psychopath in a quest for comedy gold. Robbie Coltrane tells our reporter why he loves miserablist humour - and Hagrid hero-worship.

Even those of us who once loved this sitcom have had to admit that the fourth series has felt tired, leaning on a formula we know too well: Rick Spleen's lies and hypocrisy lead, via some gentle farce, to humiliation - a social embarrassment, a public shaming, a further slide down the ranks of washed-up celebs. Tonight, though, is very different. Last week's episode, where Rick took his comedy class to Belford Prison, ended in a moment of real jeopardy: a prisoner took Rick hostage with a razor blade. The inmate was played by Robbie Coltrane and tonight he and Jack Dee share a two-hander that is radically different from your average Lead Balloon, and all the better for it. It's not bursting with belly laughs, but Coltrane is superb as the touchy drug dealer desperate for a chess set. And the light he casts on Rick's hopeless inability to tell the truth is strangely satisfying.

I was a bit down (appropriately) on Lead Balloon when this final series started, and there hasn't been much since to make me change my mind. It's felt tired. Until this one, in which Rick is taken hostage by a dangerous criminal at Belford jail. It's just the two of them in the prison library for the whole half-hour. Well, one really: Jack Dee does a lot of his squirmy, crumpled-forehead thing but the episode belongs to Robbie Coltrane, who is excellent as Rick's volatile but sensitive captor. A cracker then, again appropriately.