Radio satire has become dull and predictable

Pete Naughton laments how Radio 4's topical comedy The News Quiz and Radio 4 Extra's Newsjack can raise no longer raise either a laugh nor an eyebrow.

Miles Jupp is not Belgian

The comedian thought he knew about his Flemish roots - but as he reveals in a new radio show, he couldn't have been more wrong...

Radio Times review

Food writer Damien Trench's partner Anthony thinks they should get a lodger. But prissy Damien (Miles Jupp, who also writes In and Out of the Kitchen) is anxious about toilet arrangements, among other things: "A lodger would be an imposition, they'd upset my rhythm, my domestic ebb and flow."

It's the final episode in a very brief (three-episode) adaptation of the Radio 4 original, and though In and Out will never set the world on fire, it's sweetly funny and occasionally barbed, if a bit underpowered. And there's too much of Damien's needy literary agent. But when it's just Damien and Anthony squabbling at home about laundry or the builders, it's a wee gem.

Radio Times review

In Jonathan Coe's excellent 2013 novel Expo 58, 30-something protagonist Thomas accepts a work placement in Belgium, the country of his mother's birth. It's with heartfelt intensity that he looks forward to visiting the place where she grew up. Miles Jupp may well have been equally excited as he booked a passage across the North Sea to meet the relatives, convinced that his forebears were Huguenots no less.

But then his Belgian Who Do You Think You Are?-type crusade went awry. Family folklore is prone to increasing exaggeration. My grandmother was certain her ancestor was a former Bishop of Bath and Wells. As in Jupp's case, a little research and the illusion was shattered.

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I think we have a programme here that is very much a niche type of entertainment programme, but I hope its audience continues to grow as it truly is a very enjoyable and interesting watch.

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Everything is a jangly show that never quite seems to start properly. Then again, this doesn't seem too much of a problem. Tonight, watching Iain Stirling is like seeing an MC find that it's all going so swimmingly there's little point bringing on the headliner.

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Rules for Living review

Stephen Mangan and Miles Jupp are a joy.