Eddie Izzard

And now let's recommend another comedy series that is hardly in the full blush of youth: Chain Reaction (Radio 4, Wednesdays, 6.30pm), which this week will be half-way through its second series. The format is simple: the interviewee in the first programme becomes the interviewer in the next, and so on until the interviewer in the first becomes the interviewee in the sixth. The conversation may range freely, but always starts from the same point - the comedic style of the interviewee. It works best when both are stand-ups - they're good at being automatically funny - and the series reached a peak last week, when Dave Gorman interviewed Frank Skinner.

It's easy to dislike Skinner. There's the football, the laddishness, the swearing, the pornographic stage show. Listening to Chain Reaction, though, it was just as easy to like him. This is one charming guy, as honest when discussing his financial troubles - his life savings took a bit of a hammering when the American bank in which they were residing went under - as he is frank (it's the only word) about his sex life. It takes a very un-laddish lad to admit that the disadvantage to three-in-a-bed sex is the occasional clash of heads and the constant fear, on the part of the man, that the women are whispering about him, and giggling.

He can also tell a story about his straitened upbringing without coming over all Angela's Ashes. Yes, it took some time for the Skinner family's council house to acquire an inside toilet, but when they did his father was not impressed. A toilet inside the house? That sounded unhygienic. And as for the bath, well, the young Skinner bathed only once or twice a year. "Why should I? I didn't have a sex life at the time." Tomorrow's programme is even better - Skinner interviews Eddie Izzard.

Now here's an interesting way to celebrate the 30th birthday of a classic sitcom. For the first time ever, John Cleese reveals his favourite scenes Fawlty Towers. No clues yet as to which ones they will be but there's the added bonus of the likes of Michael Palin, Terry Jones, Mitchell and Webb, Eddie Izzard and AA Gill reminiscing about these magic moments. Possibly even more interesting will be the comments from the owners of Gleanagles Hotel, which was the real-life inspiration for Fawlty Towers.

This highly feted stand-up comedy performance by Eddie Izzard was recorded in San Francisco in 1999 (when he habitually wore more dresses and make-up than he does now). He offers his own distinctive observations on everything from the history of Western culture to puberty and royal genetics.

Eddie Izzard has always been a law unto himself, a fact well demonstrated in this triumphant performance given in San Francisco nearly ten years ago.

It includes routines on the Heimlich manoeuvre, Kennedy's 'Ich bin ein Berliner' speech, Da Vinci's Last Supper, the story of how Engelbert Humperdinck got his name and - an obvious subject for humour, this - the development of prehistoric architecture. 'Before there was Stonehenge,' he explains, 'there was Woodhenge and Strawhenge...' It is safe to say that there is no other comedian like him.

Jokes as good as these are not frequent visitors to sitcom-land. A lighter touch on the make-up and Cows might yet turn out a triumph. Let's hope it doesn't take its creator another five years to get round to making the adjustments.