David Baddiel: religion and comedy

If you're going to make fun of people's faith, it's best to know where to draw the line - and ideally before someone has shot you. So my new film puts me in risky territory...

Canned laughter is not canned!

Every single review/preview of Miranda Hart's new show, Miranda on BBC Two, that I've read, including the many positive ones, refers to the sound of the studio audience heard during the show either as canned, or as a "laugh track". Canned laughter, on a sitcom? Don't make me laugh ... it's the real thing.

Last week's interviewee, Dave Gorman, becomes this week's interviewer as he poses the questions to Frank Skinner. In fact, we hear more of Gorman's mirthful laugh than we do of his words, as Skinner talks us through his part-glamorous, part-filthy career in comedy. There are the usual tales of his experiences in a threesome, but a surprising insight on how he dissects every word about his performances. There's also a lovely story about growing up in a house with an outside toilet - David Baddiel is convinced that his friend Frank was raised in the 1920s.

The received opinions that are up for unravelling never really matter - it's the level of wit used in the arguments to debunk them that count. David Baddiel and Rufus Hound are n their comedy comfort zones, but it's actually Germaine Greer who comes out as the funniest member of the panel this week.

The sketch show, RIP? You're joking

The critics have put the boot into Horne & Corden and declared the sketch show finished. Rubbish, says David Baddiel: sketch comedy is what we Brits do best. He and other comics reveal the secrets of their craft.

In an hour, they packed in Ruby Wax's RSC reminiscences (she couldn't master the wench accent), a tribute to Richard Beckinsale, Neil Innes on Rutland Weekend TV (surely worth a repeat), a little bit about the over-rated Adrian Mole, Alan Carr's guide to Northampton, David Baddiel going back to school, Mel and Sue in Oxford, David Renwick's life on the Luton News and the evolution of Spitting Image. Great value for money!

Analyse this...

The first thing that strikes you about this sitcom, which Baddiel has written with journalist Pete Bradshaw, is that it doesn't look like a British sitcom. It looks like an American sitcom which happens to be set in Camden Town.