Steve Punt

New nightly satirical round-up of election news from The Now Show's acerbic team, led as ever by Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis. How times change. Ther''ve been almighty ructions in the past about the BBC allowing topical comedy shows onto the airwaves during an election campaign. Now Radio 4 has this (Mondays through Wednesday nights), plus two weekly editions of What the Papers Say (Sundays and Wednesdays) while The News Quiz starts another series on Friday. But in the grim convergences of this campaign will there be enough for them all to make fun of?

Break out the bunting, The Now Show has hit the big three-0. Yes, it's the 30th series of the award-garlanded topical sketch show fronted by Hugh Dennis and Steve Punt. When the ever-changing world of news is grist to your mill, it must compel you to keep going as more and more things show themselves up as ripe for sideswiping, but will the show start to settle down in its 30s, be not quite so willing to take risks as it was in its 20s? Judging by the high quality of comedy on show in the 29th series, I'd say not. It's the perfect show for the here and now, unless you're listening on iPlayer or to the newly available podcast, in which case it's the perfect show for the now and then.

Good news: The Now Show's back

The Radio 4 comedy sketch show in which Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis offer their satirical take the on the week's news returns.

Kids can learn to love history just so long as it's told to them in a way that brings it to life. And this new series, based on the colourful books by Terry Deary and Martin Brown, does precisely that, with Sarah Hadland, Steve Punt and Meera Syal among the cast re-enacting some gory ancient tales.

BBC in IRA row

The BBC is at the centre of another bad taste row after two radio presenters compared Michael Jackson to the IRA. Comedians Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis made light of the troubles in Northern Ireland by referring to the pop star and terrorist group as "Eighties celebrities" on The Now Show.

Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis may be names that TV viewers vaguely remember from The Jasper Carrot Show, but radio fans know just how good they are at dissecting the news with clinical precision. If BBC 1's Have I Got News For You is a blunt instrument, then Radio 4's The Now Show is the delicate scalpel of a heart transplant.

The format is pretty steady, with Punt and Dennis opening and closing the show, firing at a bucket load of targets and dropping in a number of running jokes for the dedicated listener (keep your ears open for a Donald Pleasance Great Escape 'I can see perfectly'). Alongside them are comedians Jon Holmes and Marcus Bridgestock, the former answering readers 'letters and emails,' while Bridgestock has a polemic that makes him the closest the UK has to Ketih Olberman. And then there's Mitch Benn, the comedy collossus with a guitar, putting the week's highlights to music.

Welcome back, my friends, to the sequence of news-based satire programmes that seemingly never ends. After six weeks of The News Quiz, we now have six of The Now Show, which will doubtless give way to Armando Iannucci's Charm Offensive and thence to The News Quiz again in the spring. Perhaps Radio 4 thinks that life is hard enough at the moment without shocking us with the new at the end of a hard week. And, to be fair, the last series of The Now Show was something of a comeback to form, with the credit crunch, the re-emergence of Peter Mandelson and the sheer otherworldliness of Sarah Palin providing plenty of grist to the mill for Steve Punt, Hugh Dennis, Marcus Brigstocke, Jon Holmes, Laura Shavin and Mitch Benn.

Depending how cynical you are, now is either the perfect time for political satire or a deliciously dangerous one. This topical sitcom by Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis is about a backbench MP (played by James Fleet) who's utterly at a loss in the backstage machinations of Westminster and now finds himself challenged in his constituency by a rising female Tory star.

As the red-hot debate on how London-centric and middle-class Radio 4 is (or is not) continues to rage, one of the shows at the heat of the fire returns for its 25th series. Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis's takes on the week's news are the best in current satirical shows for thousands, but the work of 'self-satisfied, self-appointed, elite, liberal London tosspots' according to one dissatisfied listener. I really don't understand what all the fuss is about. If you haven't laughed after the first five minutes, then switch off and wait for he Archers.