Stephen Mangan

At its best, Would I Lie to You? (or, endearingly, WILTY for short) has a clever way of making us genuinely torn about whether the tales the panellists tell are bizarre truths or rank fibs. Increasingly, guests use the devious double bluff - stumbling over their story or adding details that sound absurd, when it really happened. I won't say who tries that ruse tonight as it would spoil the fun, but I will say that for some reason the tall stories are a bit more guessable than usual. No matter, the show is still enjoyable, with stand-up comedian Reginald D Hunter riffing nicely on the idea that the "D" in his name stands for "Delicious", while Ken Livingstone talks authoritatively about a frog he claims to have bred that had a "prehensile", ie grabby, part of its body that you really wouldn't expect to be grabby. The normally unstoppable David Mitchell is oddly subdued, until a contretemps with Lee Mack about throwing (or possibly not) a sausage roll off Blackpool Tower gets him riled. But did Mitchell have a bell he used to ring as a child when he wanted something? And was Stephen Mangan in a prog-rock band with mystery guest Gordon, or is he in fact Mitchell's local pet-shop owner?

There are a lot of food-based fibs in tonight's breezy show. There's Fern Britton's tea, Lee Mack with his sausage rolls, Stephen Mangan talking about a Mini-Cooper full of sweets and American stand-up Reginald D Hunter, who claims that the D in his name stands for 'Delicious'. Personally, I think it's more likely to stand for 'Deadpan' - this guy's poker face is better than Lady Gaga's.

Also on tonight's show, Ken Livingstone says the word "anus" a lot. Honestly. Host Rob Brydon and team captain David Mitchell look suitably shocked.

Though it's a comedy, so strong and empathetic are its performances that Free Agents actually feels more like a comedy-drama in the vein of Cold Feet - which is no bad thing. This is a series set in the world of talent agents: a profession which can yield some examples of terrible human vileness (see Anthony Head's agency boss Stephen), but also surprising vulnerability. Green Wing's Stephen Mangan excels as weepy, recently divorced agent Alex. As we join him, he's trying to talk up his one-night stand with co-worker Helen (Sharon Horgan).

Stephen Mangan, a wonderful television actor who can do radio very well too (it's a rarer gift than you'd think) plays Sam, a fantasy novelist who gets swirled off into the alternative universe of Lower Earth to do battle for ownership of a magic sword which controls (naturally, what's the use of a magic sword otherwise?) everyone down there. Alistair McGowan plays his fiendish opponent Lord Darkness. There's an Elf Lord too (Darren Boyd), a dwarf called Dean (Kevin Eldon) and a Warrior Princess (Sophie Winkleman). Dave Lamb plays Sam's dog, Amis.

Stephen Mangan and Alistair McGowan, meanwhile, are away with the fairies. ElvenQuest (6.30pm, Radio 4), a six-part comedy from Richard Pinto and Anil Gupta, sees a fantasy novelist whisked off to a parallel universe where he must battle some evil lord or other for possession of the traditional enchanted pigsticker. "For whoso'er wields the sword shall rule all of Lower Earth", etc.

TV viewers will shortly get their own fantasy send-up series in the form of new BBC2 show Krod Mandoon And The Flaming Sword Of Fire, but Radio 4 sneaks in there first, with this six-part sitcom which series fantasy novelist Sam (Green Wing's Stephen Mangan) whisked off into a Tolkein-style universe where he must join a quest to find the legendary Sword of Asnagar and save Lower Earth from the clutches of Lord Darkness.

If your hobbies include masquerading as a wizard with a magic helmet, a ridiculous name and a penchant for slaying goblins, then Anil Gupta and Richard Pinto's fantastical new comedy should be right up your cobbled street. If not, don't worry - there are still loads of laughs in this affectionate lampoon of a genre that generally takes itself far too seriously.

Stephen Mangan stars as fantasy novelist Sam, who is whisked off to a Tolkien-style parallel universe by a noble elf, a sexy warrior princess and a feisty dwarf called Dean (why are dwarves always Scottish?). It turns out Sam's dog is the Chosen One destined to save 'Lower Earth' from Lord Darkness - an arch-villain reminiscent of David Warner's Devil in Time Bandits and played brilliantly by Alistair McGowan. It's so much fun you'll wish you'd joined the Dungeons & Dragons society after all.

Tonight is the series finale of this modern romantic comedy, in which two attractive people (Sharon Horgan and Stephen Mangan) are failing to have an affair. She drinks a lot of red wine and asks herself repeatedly: "When is anything ever going to start being good again?" For his part, he is trying not to walk out on people whenever the going gets tough. The Daily Express got overexcited about the bad language in the show, asking its readers: "Is this the foulest 'comedy' ever?", ignoring the fact that it was essentially a rather sweet love story between two befuddled people. It is true that the boss of the agency (Anthony Head) wallows in the mire like an ecstatic hippo, but I've been reliably informed that his character is based on a real person.

Filthier than Ray Mears' armpits after a week swamp snorkelling, the sailor's vocabulary peppered throughout the fractured romance between Stephen Mangan and Sharon Horgan has kept sappiness at bay. There is some affection in here somewhere, but thankfully it's been buried under a barrage of cynicism and damaged personalities, which is such a change from the usual romantic comedy. And there's certainly nothing usual about Anthony Head's wedding in this series closer, where he's all set to marry a high-class hooker...

Coming hot on the heels of Plus One, Free Agents is Channel 4's second Friday night homegrown comedy series that is fun to watch. And that has got to be some sort of record. The success of Free Agents is entirely down to the strange love story at its heart. "I need a stable environment in which to get better," says the Stephen Mangan character to the girlfriend who isn't his girlfriend (Sharon Horgan). "And if I stay in your stable environment, then we can get better together."

In tonight's episode, the pair head off to a funeral to try and steal the clients of a dead agent, like a couple of wounded sparrows pretending to be vultures.