Danny Baker: 'What did cancer teach me? Nothing'

Danny Baker knows what he will be doing for the first minute of his new stand-up show on Wednesday. That first minute is sorted. Locked in. For the remaining 89 minutes, however, he has no idea what he is going to say.

The conceit with which this Sue Perkins-hosted panel show hopes to distinguish itself from all the other panel shows is that every episode is dedicated to riffs on a designated name. Tonight: Alex. The ambition is clearly of landing somewhere between QI and Have I Got News For You - and it features people you have seen on either/both, or would expect to. Not disagreeable, but this edition would have been much improved by just letting guest Danny Baker tell some stories.

Preview - Insert Name Here

When Sue Perkins-fronted panel show Insert Name Here began earlier this year, there was not that much notice taken of it, which was a shame as it was one of the better efforts in terms of panel shows.

When is a stand-up comedian not a stand-up comedian?

Something that has been bothering me for a while is the way that anybody that stands up onstage and makes people laugh gets described as doing stand-up comedy.

Peter Kay is a natural heir to Ronnie Barker

Ahead of BBC1 tribute series, Peter Kay's Comedy Shuffle, friends and collaborators Sian Gibson, Danny Baker, Reece Shearsmith and Jason Manford tell TV Times what makes Peter Kay a comedy great.

Richard Herring's ten best interviews

Lorcan Mullan celebrates 100 RHLSTP episodes.

Radio Times review

If you are going to have someone sing your praises then one of the most successful and richest authors on the planet is probably as good a person as any. Harry Potter author JK Rowling was, at the time of going to press, among a host of top names lined up to pay tribute to her friend Peter Kay in this celebration of the Phoenix Nights and Car Share comedian's career.

She will be joined by Four Weddings and a Funeral and Love Actually scriptwriter Richard Curtis and author and broadcaster Danny Baker.

From his childhood growing up in Bolton, to the places, people and foodstuffs ("Garlic bread!") that have influenced his life and work, the profile will chart his rise "to become a household name and national treasure".

The evocative 1970s-set sitcom based on Danny Baker's upbringing in south-east London concludes with a double-bill. With his wavy hair and luxuriant eyebrows, young Danny belatedly realises that his resemblance to heartthrob David Essex might be a good way to pick up girls, while his wheeler-dealer dad Spud (Peter Kay) struggles with the demands of a new job. The cockney incarnation of Kay has been a revelation, but Lucy Speed - playing Danny's mother Bet - is this series' secret weapon, and she gets to shine in an eventful finale.