Tim Walker

John Cleese savages BBC and ITV for going downmarket

John Cleese says the word 'quality' is no longer mentioned at planning meetings.

Gavin wants to call it quits with Stacey

Although Alison Steadman and Larry Lamb, his co-stars in Gavin & Stacey, have set their hearts on seeing the award-winning BBC comedy series turned into a film, Matthew Horne tells me that it would be "a terrible idea."

There was no danger whatsoever of anyone wresting control of Russell Brand: Skinned from its star, even though the second half of the title referred to Frank Skinner, whose sit-down interview with Brand formed the spine of this shapeless and curiously unrevealing documentary. Or at least it seemed unrevealing, because so much of Brand's life comes pre-revealed. Unfortunately for the programme-makers, their subject has built his stand-up career on confessional routines, so even when he was describing his most private thoughts to his fellow comedian, I felt like I'd heard it all before.

Still, neither man is ever less than engaging, especially when they're talking about themselves. Brand, much of whose recent Scandalous tour revolves around so-called Sachsgate, spoke intelligently about the affair. Clear-eyed when it comes to his own mistakes, he also argued convincingly that they were amplified by the context of the disputed BBC licence fee, Jonathan Ross's salary, and the hammed-up outrage of the press.

The most interesting moments of their conversation came when Skinner paralleled Brand's experiences with his own comparatively sedate career. Skinner admitted to having "done a lot of groupie-ing" in his time, but was troubled by the blot such behaviour might have left on his moral copybook. Brand agreed, but often, he said, he's simply overcome by the "oestrogen-filled mist" that descends on his gigs. He created his womanising, Byronic goth persona, he confessed, partly as a substitute for the drugs and alcohol that once sustained him. Now that it's brought him the fame he craved, he's stuck with it. "My personality does not work without fame," he joked. "Without fame, this haircut just looks like mental illness."

Skinner also praised Brand for having - with his distinctive estuary eloquence - made it cool to be articulate, a fantastic compliment from a comedian who'll probably always be associated with mid-Nineties laddism, which sadly had the opposite effect. At one point, Brand went into lyrical detail about his ritual, pre-gig poo, describing it as a physical and spiritual cleansing that prepares him to meet his adoring public. Hmm, Skinner replied, "Most comedians just call that 'the comedy shit'."

Bad day at the office

ITV1's new recessionary comedy drama, Monday Monday, is set in the head office of a struggling supermarket chain, though it could be the head office of pretty much any struggling business, so generic is the writers' idea of a white-collar workplace. Departments like "marketing" and "human resources" are more or less interchangeable; the only visible staff members are the heads of said departments and their PAs; and the plot of the first episode was hung on such overfamiliar dramatic hooks as an office party and a hazily rationalised PowerPoint presentation.