Robert Rinder

After 50 years in showbiz, Dame Edna hung up her ballgown and retired. It turns out she's been travelling aboard a luxury yacht ever since and she now invites us on for this chatshow special with Sharon Osbourne, Judge Rinder and Emily Atack, subjecting them to her cheeky interviewing style.

Dame Edna Rules the Waves, BBC1, review

Sharon Osbourne and Rick Stein were among the guests but this was, as ever, all about Dame Edna.

We're here again: another election, another all-night ballot count and malfunctioning set of graphic explainers. Keeping up its tradition as the "alternative election night" to BBC, ITV and Sky's news-focused coverage, Channel 4 pulls out the zany stops this year, enlisting Rylan Clark-Neal and Katherine Ryan to help Krishnan Guru-Murthy. Even Judge Rinder will be there. Whatever the results, this lot will surely keep us awake.

One of the highlights of this old-fashioned variety hour is the segment where Michael lets himself into a celebrity's house by night (the front door is always conveniently open) and bursts into the bedroom to play pranks on the stunned victim.

Michael would be well advised not to try this game if he ever takes his show to the U.S., since most American celebs sleep with a shotgun over the bedstead and a handgun under the pillow.

Judge Rob Rinder was the guest this time and, though he was characteristically grumpy, he didn't attempt to shoot the intruder. Oddly, he appeared to have a bullet-proof glass balustrade around the bottom of his bed, so perhaps guns give him nightmares.

The best bit of the show is still the game in which Michael borrows a celeb's phone and sends a cheeky message to all their contacts. It gets funnier every time.

Judge Rinder has well and truly broken free from the confines of the courtroom for his topical comedy show. But he's still the country's leading legislative body when it comes to acerbic one-liners and comic common sense. As Rinder administers his own brand of justice, the laughs are likely to keep on coming.

The barrister Rob Rinder has more or less shed the gimmicky "Judge" mantle of his ITV daytime programme, and these days seems to be one of those TV performers for whom the best format is no format at all, so long as they can just be themselves as uninhibitedly as possible. Rinder's new four-part series follows a basic topical satire/interview template, using this week's news as the excuse to tell certain celebrities and politicians face to face whether or not they are doing what they should.