Ross Kemp

If you think there's only room for one Mrs Merton-style chatshow in your world, look away now. The nation's favourite Irish mammy continues her "hilarious" assault on celebrities, and what better way to do that than test Ross Kemp's survival skills in her lounge? Comedian Kevin Bridges brings his mum along for the ride and Steve Backshall is also in the house. With music from Pixie Lott, it's a Saturday night staple whether you like it or not.

Forgive me for mentioning this awful programme again. After last week, I swore I'd had enough and would never deign to include it again.

But one of the guests tonight is Kevin Bridges and he's bringing his mum, Patricia, along. My advice is to watch this on catch-up so you can scoot through all the noisy nonsense and just watch the Kevin Bridges segment.

When Mrs Brown prompts Kevin to tell us about his plans, he says he's due to go on tour in Australia and the pair reminisce, saying this is where Kevin first met Agnes Brown. She was "standing at the urinal beside me," he quips.

When the proud Mrs Bridges comes on stage she tells Mrs Brown about her son's generosity. Not only did he pay off her mortgage, he also bought her a Scottie dog ornament from a jumble sale.

They're joined on the sofa by Ross Kemp, although it's hard for Mrs Brown to interview him as she's still furious that he cheated on Tiffany.

I'll grudgingly admit I liked this section of the show.

The Comic Strip Presents... Red Top, saw some of the brand's original cast members including Nigel Planer and Peter Richardson appear beside some new recruits. These new recruits included Maxine Peake who took the lead as disgraced News International boss Rebekah Brooks in this retelling of the phone-hacking scandal that was written like it was set in the 1970s despite its many modern references. Peake provided the narration from Rebekah's own point-of-view painting herself as a naive Northern girl even though all of her co-workers thought differently. The action played out over 75 minutes and shot at many targets including The Guardian, David Cameron's attempts to become prime minister as well as the whole phone hacking scandal itself. But despite its satirical edge, I found that Red Top was quite scattershot in its approach and the script never really hung together that well. There were some elements of the programme I liked namely Russell Tovey's turn as Andy Coulson and his relationship with a stereotypical Sun journalist played by Johnny Vegas. Vegas' kind hearted reporter was eventually revealed to be the man who exposed the whole hacking scandal and the references to the Watergate Scandal were actually quite amusing. Even though it didn't really fit into anything else in the piece, I also quite liked the fact Red Top's portrayal of Tony Blair as a new-wave hippy who'd reinvented himself as a musical God. In a lovely bit of continuity Blair was played by Stephen Mangan who'd previously portrayed the former PM in The Comic Strip's last outing. However I do feel that the negatives outweighed the positives as I found a lot of the gags a bit obvious for example Wendi Deng's drugging of Rupert Murdoch in order for her to have control of his empire. Additionally I didn't feel some of the famous faces necessarily needed to be part of the story and this was particularly true in regards to Harry Enfield's Ross Kemp whose participation in the piece was minimal at best. But my main issue with Red Top was that the central joke about Rebekah Brooks' innocent outlook on events wore thin by about the halfway point. This is a shame as I believe that Peake did a good job with what she was given but I do feel that the material let her down to an extent. Overall I think that Red Top had some interesting elements but will ultimately go down as a rather forgettable entry into The Comic Strip collection.

News International gets a thorough skewering in this new instalment of the veteran satire series Comic Strip. The peerless Maxine Peake stars as flame-haired red top editor Rebekah Brooks, an "innocent and beguiling northern girl" who rises to the top of the tabloid publishing empire alongside Russell Tovey's Andy Coulson. As ever, it's a star-studded affair, with Stephen Mangan as a 70s Tony Blair and Harry Enfield as Ross Kemp, alongside top turns from Johnny Vegas, Nigel Planer and Alexei Sayle.

Radio Times review

This will be the 42nd instalment of The Comic Strip Presents pageant to be aired over the best part of 35 years, and it promises to be the kind of shamelessly silly, flight-of-fancy spoof that has become something of a national institution in the other 41.

The target for their satirical boot this time is the phone-hacking scandal, but transposed to the disco-era 1970s. Rebekah Brooks (Maxine Peake) is here a naive northern girl who more or less accidentally becomes chief executive of News International and roller-skates (literally) through life unaware of the dreadful things going on around her.

One of the only survivors of the troupe that first launched Channel 4 on air in 1982 is Nigel Planer, here playing a hen-pecked Rupert Murdoch, while Stephen Mangan reprises his Tony Blair turn (as a groovy rocker) and Harry Enfield dons the bald cap to embody Brooks's sometime husband, Ross Kemp.

Adam Buxton and Ross Kemp become Bad Robots

The comedian and the formers EastEnders hardman join Felicity Montagu, Matt Le Tisser and Sir Michael Gambon as the voices of the pesky automatons.

Radio Times review

Vic, Bob and Beef are entering a danceathon in Julie's bistro. They've got their killer moves worked out. There's the one where Vic pretends to be Richard III extracting sardines from a pantry, and the one where Bob throws wrens towards Saturn. But then Vic and Beef set about breaking each other's legs...

The plot doesn't matter, of course. Slightly more structured as Fools now is - Bob goes to the bistro "to move the story on" - we're here to be sprayed with a thousand stupid ideas. Fine bits of comic business include Vic's impossible crotch-grabbing arm, and Julie (Morgana Robinson) claiming to have done the choreography for Ross Kemp's Gangs of Namibia.

With Graham Norton set to join BBC One's chat-show line-up, toothy comedian Alan Carr attempts to fill the hole that Norton left on his defection in 2004 with this new show. Sadly, it just appears to be a rehash of Norton's So formula - sketches with celebrity cameos, an irreverent take on showbiz news and the internet. On the plus side, Carr's guests are presenter Bruce Forsyth, actress Heather Graham and actor-cum-journalist Ross Kemp. Pet Shop Boys provide the music.

The comedian Alan Carr is certain to be a distinctive chat show host, each week offering what the programme-makers call "a good old natter with three celebrity guests from the showbiz world". No surprise appearance from Barack Obama, then. His guests tonight are Bruce Forsyth, the US actress Heather Graham (Scrubs, The Spy Who Shagged Me) and Ross Kemp, whose documentary series In Search of Pirates on Sky1 has become one of the highlights of the week's viewing. The Pet Shop Boys will close the show with a performance of their latest single, Did You See Me Coming?