Jo Brand's Great Wall Of Comedy

Jo Brand: my heroes and heroines

The comedian on the people who have inspired her. Includes her mother and Linda Smith.

Barry Cryer on back-to-basics sitcoms

"You don't necessarily need funny lines all the time. The key is to create characters."

When are we going to call time on the panel-game format? Trawling through classic British sitcom clips and listening to Jo Brand, Rebbeca Front, Barry Cryer and this week's guest Tim Brooke-Taylor shooting the breeze is a jolly concept in itself; do we really have to pretend it's a quiz? Cryer and Brooke-Taylor should have spotted the danger given they've been playing "the antidote to panel games" since 1972 on Radio 4.

Dad's Army's Ian Lavender and dinnerladies' Anne Reid provide a vintage tint of comic triumphs past, but if this generation's trapped in squidgy sofas playing for points, who's going to be free to make the future comedy classics?

Rebecca Front is giving her kids comedy education

Rebecca Front has said she has been giving her children home schooling in comedy.

Jo Brand on her Great Wall of Comedy

"Nowadays female comics are not aggressive at all, whereas we felt we had to come up and shake our fists and say, 'Shut up, or you're gettin' it!'"

Eager to know why Manuel from Fawlty Towers had a moustache? The worst thing about being in Blackadder? Or maybe which actors had to bring their own clothes to film a hit pilot? The answers to these hot-button issues in Jo Brand's poorly disguised old-timey clip-show are perfectly pitched, provoking - if anything - the kind of weary, non-committal, slightly surly shrug that's engendered by watching the actual programme itself.

Brand presides over a genial half-hour of sitcom quizzery that sees team leaders Rebecca Front and Barry 'Mine's a Large One!' Cryer joined by Hugh Dennis and Tony Robinson for a trawl through some well-thumbed snippets from the BBC archives. Andrew Sachs and Ian Lavender deliver creaky old war stories and Cryer delves into his endless fund of Willie Rushton anecdotes, before a round where the guests all try on a variety of wigs puts the show out of its misery.

Brand and guests are very easy people to like, but this is the worst kind of filler; to damn it with even fainter praise, it's the sort of programme that Alan Partridge would consider 'classic broadcasting'.

Radio Times review

This is billed as a panel game but it's more of a parlour game - perhaps after a stodgy supper, given the pervading air of lethargy - in which four comedy stars flop out on sofas separated by a bank of TV screens from host Jo Brand.

Team captains Rebecca Front and Barry Cryer are joined by guests Tony Robinson and Hugh Dennis, who divulge a few of their own comedy secrets and answer questions that pop up on screen from the likes of Andrew Sachs, Lesley Joseph and Shaun Williamson. It's mildly amusing, but Jo Brand is always better unscripted.

Jo Brand's Great Wall Of Comedy review

Great Wall of Comedy seems to be at home on GOLD. It doesn't provide the huge belly laughs to warrant it being broadcast on a terrestrial channel but is ideal for comedy fans and can be quite interesting - although I'm sure there's already a panel show which fits that description.

Jo Brand: Stage acting doesn't appeal to me

Jo Brand is hosting a new quiz show about television but the BAFTA-winning star of Getting On has no desire to tread the boards like Lenny Henry.

Jo Brand interview

Her time as a mental health nurse left Jo Brand with a deep love for the NHS - now she is furious at the way nurses are under attack.