Bruce Dessau Review

At times it is so blatantly end-of-the-pier it seems like this kind of retro-humour must surely be being ironic and knowing. There is even a camp war reporter ("It's all kicking off. It's nuts") played by Mathew Horne, who, like Al Murray's current camp Nazi in his ITV1 sketch show is so over the top it is as if alternative comedy never happened.

Will Radio 4 Please Stand Up?

Did they crack it? Well, Paul Merton might not need to be afraid for his job but at least they didn't die a death. It would have been lovely to see the process on television though - they didn't sound very frightened, though maybe you could have seen the fear in their eyes if they had been onscreen.

I did, however, feel that the programme was a tiny bit disingenuous. Of course stand-up comedy is different to their day jobs, but I couldn't help sensing that they had more of a natural aptitude for it than, say, miners or chefs. Maybe a gig at the dainty Drill Hall theatre in front of a R4 partisan crowd wasn't quite the dragon's den that midnight on a raucous, lager-fuelled Saturday at the Comedy Store would have been. Why not give them a real challenge and send them there? That might have really taken this bunch of softies out of their comfort zones.

Red Dwarf - Ready For Another Blast Off?

So will it be a safe return or a crash landing? It's a long time and tastes have moved on. Red Dwarf has a large, devoted following, but this can be both a blessing and a curse.

New face of female comedy

Alice Lowe's sharp comedy features in all the best shows, but don't compare her with Catherine Tate.

It does not say much about broadcasters' confidence in new writing when they fall back on reviving something tried and tested. There seems to be a lot of this about at the moment. It has just been confirmed by the BBC that Martin Clunes is going to recreate the classic lead role made famous in the seventies by Leonard Rossiter, in a remake of The Fall And Rise Of Reginald Perrin. It will now be called simply Perrin and no doubt there will be lots of headlines about Reggie behaving very badly.

Clunes is always good value and quality writer Simon Nye is working on it with Reggie's creator David Nobbs, which sounds good. The only thing that worries me is that we have slightly been here before with The Legacy of Reginald Perrin, the 1996 series that, unlike the forthcoming version gathered together original cast members, but like the forthcoming version, lacked the real star, Leonard Rossiter, due to Rossiter being dead. Which is a bit like Hamlet without Hamlet.

Stand-Up On The Box

Does stand-up comedy work on TV? It's a question regularly asked by TV people and we are about to find out again. The stand-up showcase Live At The Apollo is due to fill the Jonathan Ross-shaped hole on BBC1 from Friday 28 November.

Olivia Colman Interview

Olivia Colman moves from Peep Show to play mum in the mildly potty Beautiful People. The Times gets acquainted.

Is Katy Brand the new Catherine Tate?

The Evening Standard's Bruce Dessau interviews Katy Brand about the second series of her show.