Sean Lock

The topical panel show returns for a new series. Host Jimmy Carr, who delivers his pre-scripted waspish remarks with perfect timing, is joined by team captains Sean Lock and Jason Manford, with pop singer Jamelia and the perennial quiz show guest Claudia Winkleman.

Sean Lock Interview

He's written for Lee Evans, Bill Bailey and Mark Lamaar. He's a regular panellist on survey-based 8 Out Of 10 Cats, as well as the intellectually stimulating QI. But even he admits to being as thick as a brick.

Cats are supposed to have nine lives and if that really is the case, time could be running out for the smuggest man on the telly - because Jimmy Carr's comedy panel show is nine series' old today. Well, technically it will be nine whole series old in six weeks' time, at the end of the latest run. But that would ruin the intro to this preview!

As usual, each show sees the teams - captained by Sean Lock and Jason Manford - guessing what the British public thinks about the week's most talked-about subjects. And as usual, being correct will come second to who can give the funniest answers.

Last Thursday's edition of QI was interesting for the guest-appearance of US comedian/actor John Hodgman, a regular on The Daily Show and "PC" in the original "Mac Vs PC" commercials. Hodgman's a big fan of the show, and was recently filmed extolling the virtues of QI during a public appearance where rallied support for a campaign to get BBC America to broadcast it (article). Clearly someone at QI noticed Hodgman's support and he was here rewarded with an appearance on the gameshow itself. I'm sure he enjoyed himself, but it made for an awkward half-hour...

Put simply, Hodgman was one of QI's worst guests - although not as bad as scruffy Scotsman Phil Kaye. It didn't help that his presence (not just as a rare guest from overseas) was highlighted by the unfair decision to stick him in the middle of teammates Sandi Toksvig and Sean Lock for the show's first ever three-person team. It felt very much like Hodgman had been crowbarred into the episode, and the show thus felt unbalanced. It also brought too much attention to Hodgman, who was suddenly given a weight of expectation - after all, why else would they upset the delicate balance of QI if he wasn't going to be comedy gold?

Of larger concern was the fact that QI's brand of comedy generally relies on wit and a certain level of surrealism. Sean Lock and Bill Bailey have that corner of the market sewn up between them. Americans in general don't seem to have the madcap comedy gene in their makeup. I'm struggling to think of any US comedians who have similar acts to Monty Python, Eddie Izzard, Vic Reeves, or Harry Hill. So, Hodgman was instantly lost during most of the rounds, while everyone else swam around talking bizarre nonsense.

Maybe Hodgman would be able to find his footing if he came back for future editions, as I'm sure it was very nerve-wracking to suddenly find yourself in the show you dearly love and have publicly championed. It's also worth mentioning that the comedy panel show subgenre is practically unknown in America, so he came in a little unskilled. At times, Hodgman just settled for answering questions in a straight-forward manner (which helped him win the show), in-between forcing out a few half-hearted attempts to be offbeat and funny. Still, at least he actually DID get involved. There are far worse examples of British comedians guesting on panel shows and saying literally four sentences. Which is even worse when you stop to remember these shows can take hours to film and they edit it down to a half-hour of highlights.

Dave's top original show - recently selected for the honour of a rerun on BBC2 - finishes off the series with a best-of compo. So it's a bit funnier, although it still has the problem of mixing autocued speeches that feel too scripted with improvised banter that feels rudderless and underpowered. Sean Lock and Frankie Boyle are the pick of the many guest debaters. They join regular captains Rufus Hound, who strips naked at the end, and Marcus Brigstocke, who doesn't. Cuddly chairman John Sergeant links the clips.

A slice of stand-up from Sean Lock, recorded at London's Hammersmith Apollo in 2008. A mermaid-run funfair made from jelly could magically appear in Lock's back garden, and he'd still look about as excited as if you'd just told him to take some rubbish to the dump. Even so, his ability to carve apart life's banalities with withering one-liners is a joy, and this 2008 gig in London finds him on tip-top form.

Sean Lock co-wrote and narrated TV's Believe It Or Not and I doubt if he'll make easier money this year.

A cut and paste collection of TV's more bizarre moments, punctuated by snide comments from Lock, the show was yet another tribute to the researcher's art.

We were invited to relive horrors, obscure and familiar, including Loyd Grossman's rock band, the man on Nationwide who claimed he could walk on eggs (he couldn't), MP Christopher Mayhew taking Mescaline on a 1956 edition of Panorama, Fanny Cradock committing career suicide and, best of all, Oliver Reed's alcohol-fuelled appearance on late-night discussion show, After Dark.

Lock thoughtfully transcribed Reed's exact words: "If somebody that knows no ill comes to a Palais de Dance and tickles his heels in the air because he's a Celt, how do you forgive yourself because he's a better dancer?" How, indeed, Oliver? How indeed?

If they conducted a national poll to find which panel show the public thought best bridged the gap between Have I Got News For You and Family Fortunes, this would be the hands-down winner.

Host Jimmy Carr returns to deadpan his way through an eighth series of more current affair-based quipping.

The show's traditional opening round to try and guess which headlines have been exercising the public jawbones this week should be pretty easy. And you can bet team captains Sean Lock and Jason Manford have spent the week happily polishing ad-libbed one-liners about Britain's Got Talent, Susan Boyle's meltdown, The Apprentice and the Big Brother launch.

As with HIGNFY, the only flaw in this format is that the panelists then have to patiently EXPLAIN these hot topics to us as though we've just recently touched down from Mars. "She was this woman with bushy eyebrows who lived with her cat in a village in Scotland and then she became the most famous woman in the world and it all went a bit wrong..."

Chipping in with their two-pence worth this week will be Johnny Vegas, Ulrika Jonsson, Jodie Kidd (not known for her rapid-fire humour, but she may surprise us) and Jack Whitehall, who'll be secretly hoping that the nation will be talking of nothing other than what a shame it is he won't be hosting Big Brother's Big Mouth this year.

One of the nice spin-off benefits of Big Brother's return is that this splendid panel game, hosted by Jimmy Carr, also takes up its traditional place alongside it on a Friday night. Rival captains Sean Lock and Jason Manford, plus celeb guests, speculate as to the outcome of various weird surveys.

New series of the topical quiz show - that's so hot C4 would only send us a preview disc to get here on Monday. Presumably because it is so topical it is filmed after it's shown. It's funnier than it has any real right to be, because of Jimmy Carr's well crafted one-liners, Jason Manford's likeable nature and Sean Lock's occasional bursts of genius. The guests tonight are the posh 12-year-old comic Jack Whitehall, who did a nice line in flirting with Ken Livingstone last time he was on and Johnny Vegas, who we saw trawling around a north London bookshop last week looking rather svelte.