The Jonathan Ross Show

Harry Hill shows off new look with a full head of hair

Harry Hill sports a bald new hairstyle on television tonight.

Clive James on The Jonathan Ross Show

As the BBC is about to learn, Jonathan Ross was born to host one of their talk shows.

The garrulous host seems to have stuck with the same Friday Night formula, as he settles into his new home on ITV1. He still lavishes his guests with compliments while making hit-and-miss jokes, but the calibre of guests is as strong as it ever was. His first, Helen Mirren, is always a delight to watch on a chat show and she's there to plug her new espionage thriller The Debt which also stars Tom Wilkinson and her Calendar Girls co-star Ciarán Hinds. Also on the show is entertainingly camp dance teacher Louie Spence, who will have no trouble stopping Ross from stealing his limelight. Music comes from Brit-rock band Kasabian but you can always change the channel before the end.

Kay and Jackman made for a lively Jonathan Ross Show

Three episodes in and Jonathan Ross is back on form, with a relaxed and spontaneous show full of mirth and candid discussion.

Tonight's line-up of guests is terrific: the ridiculously hunky Hugh Jackman, the sainted Stephen Fry and the peerless Peter Kay. So make the most of them, Jonathan, get them all out at once, chatting together on the sofa.

That's what makes Graham Norton's show such fun; rather than having painful or strained little individual interviews, he just flings the guests together and watches as something wonderful emerges. Come on, who wants to see Fry flirt with Jackman? I do, I do.

Jackman, an action hero and a highly accomplished song-and-dance man, is in town to plug his new film, Real Steel, a shiny, butch-looking thing about boxing and robots. Fry is on the show just to be himself while Kay, whose staggeringly successful comedy career spawned a similarly staggeringly successful brace of jokey autobiographies, is here to talk about his new book.

Drawing a respectable 4.3 million viewers in its first episode, Jonathan Ross's new show has precisely the same format as his old one, minus the Four Poofs and a Piano. You can hardly blame ITV for not tinkering too much, though: even when Ross was in the grips of "Sachsgate", his show managed to attract decent audiences. Tonight the loud-mouthed presenter welcomes Stephen Fry, comedian Peter Kay and Australian actor Hugh Jackman, who'll be discussing his new big-budget sci-fi movie, Real Steel.

Jonathan Ross loses 1m viewers

Jonathan Ross lost more than one million viewers for the second episode of his ITV show.

The Jonathan Ross Show review

Frankly, no matter how good Jonathan Ross can still be, or what high-caliber guests he books in the future, his show's format feels dull.

The Jonathan Ross Show was given a fairly low key launch last week given that it was the long-awaited return of a British talk show staple, and followed suit with a similarly muted episode.
Sarah Jessica Parker was candid and Adele as booming as ever but the line-up felt a little lacklustre for an opener.

This was rectified tonight however with an entertaining, albeit slightly random group of guests perching on the Jonathan Ross sofa.
Benedict Cumberbatch talked John Le Carre novels while The Saturdays were a little less prosaic with their insights into the pop industry, but Alan Carr proved the most interesting booking. An odd choice to invite a clear rival onto the show though perhaps, especially since the bespeckled comedian, along with Graham Norton, is arguably surpassing Ross in the talk show stakes at the moment.

With Friday Night With...'s pre-Jools Holland slot the BBC vehicle often saw some good live music and it was pleasing to see that this is to be kept up on ITV, with tonight's performance coming from legendary funksters The Red Hot Chili Peppers, sans departed guitarist John Frusciante.

Not the second coming, just business as usual for Ross

It was the chin that gave him away. Jonathan Ross, who since his departure from the BBC following the Sachsgate affair has been advertising his devil-may-care, unemployed status with flip-flops and a goatee, stepped on to the set fully shod and shorn of all facial hair.