Comic's Choice

Leading up to the British Comedy Awards, Comic's Choice invited five celebrated comedians - Alan Davies, Sean Lock, Jo Brand, Jessica Hynes, Lee Mack - to choose a shortlist and winner from among their own personal past favourites. Bill Bailey played affable host, something he does effortlessly.

Forgetting for one moment the universally acknowledged truth that no comic truly enjoys any laughter they haven't themselves produced, the show's premise was flimsy in the extreme. Not to mention confusing - Alan Davies nominated Chris Morris as Best Breakthrough Act for work done in 1994.

Davies also took part in a film recreation of an unsuccessful audition he once attended, as gratuitous a piece of padding as I have seen in a long time. This lack of coherence was reflected in the meaningless studio set design which threw together leather armchairs, old boilers, stuffed elk heads and bicycles combined to create the effect of a gentleman's club located in a garage.

Basically Comic's Choice was yet another excuse to disinter old archive clips instead of producing fresh comedy. Although, having said that, the archive clips were rather excellent, so I'm not complaining too loudly.

On the face of it, Comic's Choice looked as if it was going to be negligibly mediocre. It had the kind of jaunty animated title sequence we've seen a hundred times before, and the pre-broadcast description indicated that it was yet another clip-show, one of those comedians-talking-to-comedians affairs that can occasionally make contemporary broadcasting look like a vast job-creation scheme for underemployed stand-ups. The saving grace here is that one of the comedians (the presenter one) is Bill Bailey. Not only can he play his own signature tune but he's got a manner that somehow makes the format work, which is handy for Channel 4, since it's on every night this week, as a curtain-raiser to the British Comedy Awards this coming weekend.

That's the premise. The British Comedy Awards do flavour of the month, while this short series explores more durable supremacy, with each guest nominating and selecting their best of the best in various categories. Last night, Alan Davies was in the selector's chair, and quickly demonstrated one problem with the structure of the programme, which is that there's no proof in comedy. Davies had nominated Dave Allen as Best Male Comic, on the strength of a live West End performance he once saw. But, of course, there was no clip of that, and even if there had been it may not have made his case for him. It doesn't hugely matter, though, because Bailey is affable and funny enough to fill the gaps - on great form last night pretending to sulk about one of Davies's other nominations, the "sexy little jazz weasel" Noel Fielding, who once bumped him off a captain's slot on Never Mind the Buzzcocks.

Comic's Choice review

Okay, hands up, Comic's Choice was merely another excuse for Channel 4 to bash out another cut and paste clip show, but unlike the recent David Walliams' Awfully Good it didn't drag on for days and was a great deal of fun.

When actors talk warmly about other actors who inspired them, the results are embarrassing, as a rule. But the same doesn't apply to comedians, for some reason: get them talking about other comics and the results can be tart, revealing and funny. That's the idea here as part of the extra hoo-ha that Channel 4 is drumming up around next week's British Comedy Awards. The idea is that Bill Bailey chats to a different comedian each night about his or her comedy heroes. What are their all-time favourite shows and which comedian would they give their own personal award to? Bailey begins with selections from Alan Davies - always smarter than he pretends to be - and later in the week there's hero worship from Lee Mack, Jo Brand, Jessica Hynes and Sean Lock.

As the British Comedy Awards gets a revamp and moves to Channel 4 from ITV, Bill presents five companion shows in the week running up to the big event, on Saturday. In each he interviews a top British comedian about their comic likes and dislikes. First it's Alan Davies, with Lee Mack, Jo Brand, Jessica Hynes and Sean Lock to follow on consecutive nights.