About 10 minutes in, The Morgana Show, a new comedy showcase for Channel 4, was going to get a really terrible review. The opening sketch - a gag about Boris Johnson at prep school - combined a weak impersonation with a silly and unfunny script. The Cheryl Cole and Dannii Minogue take-offs weren't much better and a sketch featuring Gilbert - a teenager with learning difficulties who stars in his own home-made television show - struck me as bullying in its comedy, the kind of television that will go down very well with callow 14-year-olds, but will make life absolute hell for any of their contemporaries unfortunate enough to wear bottle-bottom glasses. But then Morgana released the bully in me by doing a wickedly accurate impression of Fearne Cotton, a presenter who richly deserves all the mockery she can get. And I laughed at the running gag about Lady Gaga, glimpsed doing banal household tasks in wildly improbable costumes. By the end, I even laughed at Gilbert, thanks to the detail of Robinson's performance. But I'm not proud of myself.

We must part with our celebration of female- fronted comedy, thanks to The Morgana Show, a witless sketch vehicle for newcomer Morgana Robinson. Why has she got her own show? Is it because her agent is the powerful John Noel, who numbers Russell Brand among his clients? I wonder.

Like the similarly charmless Katy Brand, Robinson's toothless parodies of the likes of Boris Johnson and Cheryl Cole are an apolitical affirmation of the celebrity status quo, not an attack on it. They lack the backbone required for anything other than staggeringly uninspired whimsy.

And when Dom Joly escapes from the jungle, someone should alert him to The Morgana Show's suspiciously familiar bellowing mobile phone businessman. Shameless stuff.

Continuing Tuesday night's sour comedy hour, The Morgana Show is a brand new five-part sketch show that's similarly humorless and prolonged to Frankie Boyle's Tramadol Nights - although there's a glimmer of potential because its star, Morgana Robinson, is clearly a talented performer and mimic. It's just a shame the writing can't match her. Unusually, Channel 4 commissioned this show after being impressed by Morgana's self-made pilot, without testing the water by showing it as part of the Comedy Lab season, or on late-night E4.

It's great someone had faith in this show, and for someone like Morgana to be rewarded for her proactive nature in getting themselves a TV show made, but that made the disappointment of The Morgana Show itself cut even deeper. I wanted this to be a comedy treasure to discover and spread the word to others, but it turned out to be fool's gold.

It's another character-based sketch show; one with a slight League Of Gentlemen vibe, spliced with sketches you'd expect to see in a darker version of The Fast Show. Indeed, Morgana Robinson reminded me of Caroline Aherne at times, particularly during a sketch where she plays the owner of a funeral parlour married to an oafish husband. Other characters include: Madolynn, a prima donna Hollywood star now in her middle age; a pair of news reporters who trade insults with each other before the cameras roll; and homemade videos featuring a boy called Gilbert, filmed by his long-suffering granddad on a camcorder in the early-'90s. There are also a smattering of celebrity impressions: a good approximation of Cheryl Cole (seen reading an uncouth Dannii Minogue's Tarot cards backstage on The X Factor), Boris Johnson as a bumbling public schoolboy, and a truly uncanny Fearne Cotton (repurposed as a hyperactive daredevil stuntwoman, above-left).

By the end of this first episode, one thing was clear: Morgana Robinson's a talent in need of some good writers. Her Fearne Cotton impression was marvelous, and Gilbert is a convincing character with a lot of reality to him, but practically everything fell flat because it wasn't especially funny (no memorable punchlines or clever twists), and too many characters felt derivative (the monstrous actress cliché, bickering news reporters, etc.)

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It's only 18 months since Cheryl Cole last sat on Wossy's sofa. Back then she had recently reconciled with her Chelsea footballer husband Ashley after allegations of his cheating. She was happily sporting her wedding ring as a public affirmation that she'd taken him back - although she did explain, "I was tempted to put it [the ring] back on - but in his head." In the light of the recent announcement that the pair have officially separated and are going to divorce, it seems likely that her ring finger will be unadorned for tonight's appearance. And her publicist having asked that Cheryl be given "privacy" at a difficult time, no doubt the singer will be much more keen to promote her new single, Parachute. But only the most naive wouldn't expect Ross to press her for some titbits on the collapse of her marriage. As she has spoken candidly - perhaps a little too candidly - about her personal life to Ross before, it'll be interesting to see whether she decides to opens up again.

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This new series from the Comedy Connections people has a rather misleading title.

Despite the efforts of presenter Clive Anderson and three other scriptwriters to find the funny side of different TV formats this is a fairly straight run-through.

It would certainly benefit from less of Clive's awkward links and more of what we really want to see, the clips which cover all the bases from an ancient show called Top Town right through to today's The X Factor, Britain's Got Talent and John Sergeant doing his Stiffly Come Dancing thing.

Among the gems tonight is ex-Corrie actress Debra Stephenson doing impressions of judges Amanda Holden, Cheryl Cole and Dannii Minogue.

And Les Dennis reveals that the clapometer on Opportunity Knocks was operated by a couple of prop men pushing a lever to pretty much wherever they liked. A generation is collectively gutted.

Kevin Bishop Interview

The Kevin Bishop Show is back next week for another round of television trashing and celeb mocking. This series, Cheryl Cole, Kerry Katona and Stephen Hawking are among the unfortunate elite of celebrity targets being bashed by the Bishop.