Spitting Image victims on being lampooned

As the satirical puppets return, Edwina Currie, Neil Kinnock and Ken Livingstone discuss their portrayal in the original.

The Baby Boomers' Guide to Growing Old review

Su Pollard's voiceover did try to prepare us. 'Warning!' she growled at the outset of The Baby Boomer's Guide To Getting Old (More4). 'This programme contains old people talking about sex. Get over it!' And she wasn't kidding. Honestly, you'd think the over-70s never think about anything else.

Debut of a new series that claims to illuminate a new demographic phenomenon - the fact that post-65 retirement is now often measured in decades rather than years - but which is mostly a reality show. The conceit is that well-known personages - among them Edwina Currie, Kenny Lynch and Esther Rantzen - will explore different aspects of later life. Tonight, it's love, with Henry Blofeld and Amanda Barrie running a dating agency.

Expect no mercy from a second attack of Spitting Image

Being caricatured by the Sunday night satirists was both a blessing and a curse, says former Cabinet Minister Edwina Currie.

Interview: Ross Noble in Stitches

The comedian discusses gory prosthetics, gruesome effects and Edwina Currie

The best resurrection of the undead came in Craig Brown's Lost Diaries, which assembled a formidable clutch of impressionist talent, including Rory Bremner, Alistair McGowan and Jan Ravens, to deliver gobbets of satire on figures who may have vanished from public life, but burn brightly in collective memory. There was Edwina Currie's diary on her trysts with John Major: "'Essentially,' he coos, 'these proposals for renewing the essential health of our domestic economy are the same as those I previously mentioned.' 'Go on!' I beg him." There is John Prescott, whose malapropisms and bulimia are a gift, and Antonia Fraser on Harold Pinter's poem about Humpty Dumpty as a denunciation of the Bush regime. "Serves you bloody right for being an egg, chum!" Antonia records that, "Both mummy and daddy had their eyes closed in immense concentration." Bliss.

It began with an unprecedented third-party surge, with Channel 4 opening its campaign for the couch-potato vote 55 minutes before the two established parties - BBC and ITV - even got into the game. There would be, the announcer promised, "very strong language and adult humour", not something that had ever been delivered by the traditional coverage, and it was rapidly clear that the Alternative Election Night really did have fresh policies to offer.

They had Lauren Laverne and Charlie Brooker and David Mitchell and they had an anchor, Jimmy Carr, with a novel approach to clarification: take their beginner's guide to proportional representation, for example. "The easiest way to explain it," said the comedian drily, "is to someone who's interested and already understands it".

With the satire muzzled by broadcasting restrictions until polls closed, they filled the time with a special edition of Come Dine With Me - three politicians and a pundit competing in a hellish unpopularity contest. Derek Hatton cooked scallops with asparagus for Edwina Currie, Brian Paddick and Rod Liddle and the viewers watched aghast.

"They might as well have called that If You Only Had One Bullet", said Carr, not the last time in which he deployed a candour which would have been welcome on other channels. I'm not sure that anybody with a choice in the matter would have turned over at 9.55pm - for the fiesta of vacuity which fills the gap until the first significant result arrives.

For those who are interested in the election but can't face endless analysis and Jeremy Vine's Swingometer, here's some light relief: live satire from Jimmy Carr, David Mitchell and Charlie Brooker, who will be riffing off events as they unfold over four hours, with Lauren Laverne adding sass.

The quartet will be joined by a bookmaker, while there will be some pre-recorded segments that include a Come Dine With Me election special featuring Edwina Currie. Wonder if eggs are on the menu?

We, as you should, will be beginning election night with C4. Their Alternative Election Night is a kicking-off point, where you can watch Jimmy Carr deliver uncomfortable jokes about how ugly politicians are, Charlie Brooker deliver anger you can tell he no longer feels and Lauren Laverne make some vowels last an instant too long. The Election Special Come Dine With Me is infuriating and not just because of Brian Paddick's shirts and Rod Liddle's Julie Burchill-style provocateering. Comes to something when Edwina Currie is clearly the least annoying person on screen. Armando Iannucci is on at 10.