Wayne Rooney wants role on The Inbetweeners

The show's stars Blake Harrison and Simon Bird told the Daily Star: "Apparently, Wayne Rooney and Rio Ferdinand want parts in the show," they said. "And Amanda Holden told us she wants to play a sexy English teacher in the next series."

Amanda Holden shuns Jonathan Ross

Britain's Got Talent judge Amanda Holden has revealed that Jonathan Ross wants her to feature in the final instalment of his chatshow. She suggested she would decline the offer.

Amanda Holden's comedy Big Top has been axed

Amanda Holden's BBC1 comedy Big Top has been axed - for being a Big Flop.

The Persuasionists is a sitcom set in an advertising agency and all I can say is hats off to whoever sold this pup to the BBC.

Episode one saw the creative dynamos of HHHH&H attempting to market Cockney Cheese, brainchild of a tediously stereotypical East End entrepreneur.

Cockney Cheese was a sludgy brown, whilst his follow up product, Cockney Chocolate, pursued the scatological theme and was yellow. "It smells awfully familiar," observed the team, turning up their noses. Uncharitable viewers may be tempted to think a similar smell was emanating from the programme.

In the spirit of constructive criticism, let me say that The Persuasionists isn't as bad as the recent Amanda Holden debacle Big Top. Which isn't saying much, but is indicative of how low the sitcom bar now rests.

The Persuasionists is a mess, infused with that embarrassing mania that invariably takes hold of sitcoms free from humour, plot or characterisation. There is quite a zany foreigner called Keaton, but he is such a shameless - and pale - imitation of Kramer from Seinfeld that he doesn't really count.

The programme's only redeeming feature is Daisy Haggard as odious rich girl Emma. As all around her overact, shout and try out funny accents with increasing volume but to diminishing effect, Haggard somehow fashions a funny performance from the flimsiest of comic material.

Tonight's second episode of this circus-set sitcom relies on old-fashioned shtick such as a clown catching fire and delusional Georgie (Ruth Madoc) believing she's being bossed around by her performing dog. It's gently amusing, old-fashioned comedy, with the bonus of Amanda Holden in short shorts.

There's a terrible disaster with Big Top tonight. "The BBC is screening another episode?" you may ask. Well, yes it is. But the disaster in question is Lizzie's skydiver breaking his right leg.

He's in hospital in plaster but Lizzie (Amanda Holden) isn't worried yet - his left one still works... Oh dear, now it doesn't. Now she's worried. Just what is a girl in a red coat and giant black knickers supposed to do?

The audience expect a death-defying act but all Lizzie has are a Hi-de-Hi! escapee and her dog, two terrible clowns, a snide Baldrick lookalike and a man in green spandex and silver foil. Unless Erasmus (Tony Robinson) finally lets his hatred of Plonky the Clown (John Thomson) reach psycho killer proportions, the only thing that risks death is the show's script.

Lizzie offers a £100 bonus to anybody who comes up with an act to save the day. But with a team of idiots surrounding her, the suggestions aren't good.

The setting - a small-scale circus - is colourful and original. The characters are fun. The cast, which includes Tony Robinson, Sophie Thompson, Ruth Madoc and John Thomson, is comprised of rock solid comedy pros who deliver the goods. It contains gently romantic elements which are rather sweet...

Truth be told though, I didn't find it funny. With one or two exceptions, the gags are limp and lumbered with punchlines Nostradamus probably saw coming. Moreover, it has as its star Amanda Holden, who totally fails to deliver any kind of performance through the mask that is her face.

In Big Top, Amanda Holden plays Lizzie, owner and ringmaster of a down-at-heel circus in North Staffordshire. "Gather round," she began the series. "We have a problem."

We certainly did. We had (un-) magically gone back to the imbecilic sitcoms of the 1970s.

A bogus poster had been put up by their rivals calling Circus Maestro/Big Top "the UK's lousiest circus. Groan at our useless jugglers, yawn at our tedious clowns.."

"Who could possibly hate us any this much ?" she cried. "Well it could be anyone who's seen the show," one performer quipped. Quite.

"If we're so terrible, how come we get a huge cheer when we finish ?" asked one of the clowns.

There were: ferret-down-the-trousers gags, Lizzie's Aunt Helen setting her up with (wait for it) a bearded lady, and (of course) a shot of John Thomson's bum. There was even a Romanian trapeze artist worthy of Mind Your Language.

Miranda Hart is a distinctly amiable and engaging comic whose funny bones are as prodigious as her height. Hart, a stand-up, made her way on to TV via the exemplary Smack the Pony, the execrable Hyperdrive and, latterly, the excellent Not Going Out, in which she channelled Count Duckula's Nanny - an oversized hen who is impossible to dislike. All of which has led to her own show, which at first felt rather twee, what with all her knowing glances to camera and the actors' waving over their names as the credits rolled à la Dad's Army. Really, who do you think you are kidding?

But, to Hart's credit, the series has picked up, and its latest outing, which saw her taking a holiday - to Thailand, she told her friends, but actually around the corner to a luxury retreat - had me in fits. Not for its originality of premise - taking on a self-improvement lecturer's persona and playing merry hell with it is not exactly mind-blowing - nor the farce (one of the friends she lied to turns up as an "escort" she mistakenly ordered) but perhaps because it is impossible not to warm to someone so at ease with their own inadequacies.

Promoting her show Big Top, Amanda Holden asked the salient question: "In this current climate who wants to watch a desperate family in their living room? They want escapism, colour and clowns - even if they're rubbish!" Well, Amanda, sorry to disappoint, but I'd rather spend the rest of this seemingly never-ending crunch watching Miranda Hart and her friends struggling to make something of their lives than another second of you sending in the buffoons.

Amanda Holden goes back to sitcoms to headline Big Top, a new BBC1 comedy set in a travelling circus. Holden plays Lizzie the Ring Mistress, which calls to mind a smutty joke the show would never contemplate tackling. No, we're in family-friendly sitcom territory for this series by writer Daniel Peak (My Hero), so it's all very innocuous and frivolous stuff that kids and the elderly will find amusement in. Predictably, it's taken a battering in the press for its old-fashioned sensibilities, but such critics forget the fact that a large portion of the British public just aren't interested in the cutting-edge comedy offered by The Thick Of It and Peep Show. A lot of people just want something colourful, inoffensive and cheeky, with signposted jokes and a few famous faces (John Thomson, Tony Robinson) thrown into the mix. It's not to my taste and I won't be watching a second more, but I've seen a lot worse, and some of the gags made me smile with a groan behind my lips. Plus, there's always the sight of Amanda Holden in hotpants if all else fails.