David Mitchell (I)

It is quite possible for the entire 30-minute format to zoom by while one sits in a state of permanent bafflement. This, at least, is what happened to me. Chief among my head-scratching topics was the matter of why: why anyone's agents had allowed them to participate? Bird, yes, who made an excellent start on the comedy ladder as a kind of young David Mitchell in The Inbetweeners, but also the contestants.

Last night, we got Peaches Geldof, James Corden and Sarah Beeny, none of whom - last time I checked - were desperate for publicity (aside from Beeny, that is, but then she set up the My Single Friend website, so she's laughing all the way to the bank). So why, one wonders, had they submitted themselves to this? Unlike most make-a-fool-of-the-famous-person shows, it is virtually impossible to come off looking good, even if you, like Corden and Geldof, manage to make the odd good joke. The basic premise was that our celebrity contestants were "applying" for the job of US President. To do so, they had to engage in fights with vending machines, guess lines of movie dialogue and answer awkward questions. Unfortunately, there was not a nail-biting, amusing or revealing moment in it. Given this, perhaps it's not surprising that Beeny, the most boring of the three, won. Surely it can't last.

Deborah Meaden from Dragons' Den strikes me as a hard-hearted rationalist, a no-nonsense type. Would she really be the sort of person to call in an exorcist because the furniture in her house moved around in the night? That's what she asks us to believe as a panellist taking part in tonight's truth-twisting japes and, as always, you're torn: is she clumsily embroidering a lie she has just read off the card or is she deliberately fumbling the telling of a true story? The same dilemma presents itself when Patrick Kielty's anecdote about once punching Muhammad Ali unfolds rather unconvincingly and when David Mitchell explains how he used a calculator to talk to Captain Kirk during episodes of Star Trek. It's horribly plausible.

Do you think Rob Brydon is telling the truth when he assures us that when panellists read statements off their cards, they're seeing them for the very first time?

Or is that a lie as well? That thought might have occurred to you a few times already as all the participants turn out to be surprisingly capable of spinning a believable yarn around the most unlikely of subjects. So either the show is fibbing about the rules or Britain's celebs are actually a far more devious bunch than we give them credit for.

Tonight, no-nonsense Dragon Deborah Meaden insists that she once called in an exorcist after spooky goings-on in her home, Patrick Kielty claims an extraordinary meeting with Muhammad Ali, stand-up comic Mark Watson relives a childhood trauma, Bernard Cribbins holds up his hands to car theft. Worryingly, we're inclined to believe every word they say.

Team captains David Mitchell and Lee Mack are on especially fine form tonight.

In tonight's episode of the comedy panel show, guests Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Rufus Hound, Miranda Hart and Rhod Gilbert compete to disentangle outlandish fact from fiction. Can it be true, for instance, that Fearnley-Whittingstall allows his dog to lick a well-known yeast extract spread off his face? Has Hound visited every pub called The Red Lion inside the M25, apart from four? Comedian Rob Brydon is the host, with David Mitchell and Lee Mack as the team captains.

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, protector of poultry, guardian of gourds and foragers' friend, only gets picked for panel shows because he doesn't kick up a stink when comedians tease him for being a wet hedge-muncher. Here, though, his sense of self-humour is tested to the max when he reads out the line, "Occasionally, I put Marmite on my face and let my dog lick it off." If Hugh's telling the truth, he's an even better sport than we've given him credit for. But, all angles considered, we watched hoping it was a fib. The alternative is just too creepy. Also guesting is Miranda Hart who, thankfully, gets through the half-hour without once referencing her boringly self-deprecating belief that she looks like a man. Best in show is David Mitchell's fight with Rhod Gilbert over the aforementioned yeast-based spread.

Mitchell, Webb filming new 'Peep Show'

David Mitchell and Robert Webb have revealed that they have started filming new episodes of Peep Show.

Ronnie Corbett is the very special guest on David Mitchell's team tonight. It's a chance for host Rob Brydon to try out his favourite Corbett impression on the real thing and also an opportunity for a very happy Lee Mack to fulfil a childhood dream.

Corbett's presence - small though it is - is a huge part of the show which also sees Julian Clary attempting to explain why he's got a unicorn in his garden and David discussing his unusual childhood friendship with a bucket.

The other two panelists, Sarah Millican and Holly Walsh, may be less well-known but in such legendary company as this they more than keep up their end of the banter - adding up to another perfectly breezy ­half-hour.

Motivating Mitchell and Webb

As the producer of That Mitchell and Webb Look I'm often asked if it's as much fun working with David and Rob as it is watching them. The answer is of course no.

Often in this show a panellist manages, through artful stumbling, to make everyone else think that a true story is made-up nonsense. Much harder is to pick up a card and read a fabrication you've never seen before, then convince the assembled wits it happened. There's a solid-gold example of the latter tonight, though to say who pulls it off would of course spoil the point. Aside from that, it's a slow starter, but takes off when David Mitchell cross-examines Kevin Bridges over a horse the latter supposedly bought by mistake in Bulgaria. Also taking part, Prof Brian Cox, a giggly Keeley Hawes and Stephen Mangan.