The News Quiz

Review: The News Quiz hosted by Miles Jupp, Radio 4

I'm not sure if fans will be saying "Sandi who?" just yet, but as debuts go this was a pretty efficient one. Jupp felt like a good fit and I'm sure he will get better. As he joshed when referring to Jeremy Corbyn: "It's all a learning curve and he'll be a lot more confident by episode 2..."

Sandi Toksvig bid The News Quiz (Radio 4, Friday) farewell this week. She had been with the show for nine years, 28 seasons and 222 episodes, which is a good innings by anyone's account. Dressed in tuxedos, her panel - Jeremy Hardy, Francis Wheen, Andy Hamilton, Phill Jupitus - looked like something from the early days of BBC Radio, and put in a relatively subdued performance. Like them, I'll miss her laugh, her ability to poke fun at herself, her infectious good nature. But I'm also intrigued to see whether Miles Jupp, named as her successor in this week's announcement, can breathe new life into a series that has become rather cosy and unsurprising of late.

In praise of Sandi Toksvig

Elliot Wengler hails the outgoing chair of The News Quiz.

Black tie, BBC "bias" and blubbing at The News Quiz

For a recording of a light-hearted comedy show, last night was a surprisingly sad affair.

Sandi Toksvig's last News Quiz, review

During Toksvig's nine year stint as host, Radio 4's The News Quiz has gone from strength to strength. She'll be missed, says Michael Hogan.

Who will replace Sandi Toksvig on The News Quiz?

Radio 4 is looking for a new host to present its long-running panel show. We assess the runners and riders.

The News Quiz (Radio 4, Friday), Britain's longest-running series in this genre, is also the lead offender in terms of bad topical comedy. Worn smooth by nearly 40 years of regular airtime, it is now as cosy and predictable as pie and mash; to my knowledge it hasn't caused a sharp intake of breath since 2011, when the host, Sandi Toksvig, made a pun about a four-letter-word.

Listening to the current - 86th - series, I've become convinced that if technicians programmed a computer with a wide-ranging set of News Quiz input-output rules ("Middle East peace talks = joke about Tony Blair"; "Education cuts = ironic reference to Eton," etc) and fed it the week's current affairs, they could accurately predict the show's scripts.

The only curveball in this week's edition was that regular panellist Jeremy Hardy had been asked to chair, as Toksvig was off sick. This seemingly humourless move had been singled out as a rich source of in-joke material by the writers. "I am the host this week because Sandi has been suspended for biting the producer's knees when her pre-show herring was not chilled to the correct temperature," Hardy began (Toksvig is 4ft 11in and from Denmark). He later returned to the theme during a limp segment about genealogy: "everyone on this panel will have a little bit of Scandinavian in them; could everybody just make sure they haven't sat on Sandi?" Unsmiling, I added "ST absence = joke about smallness + Scandinavia" to the list.

Simon Hoggart, former host of The News Quiz, has died

Guardian journalist Simon Hoggart has died aged 67 from pancreatic cancer, the newspaper has confirmed. Hoggart was also known for presenting Radio 4's The News Quiz for 10 years up until 2006.