The One Griff Rhys Jones review

It was surprising that this half hour had turned out to be a genuinely odd little pleasure, as opposed to a tired retread of comedy's nearly-forgotten landscapes.

To an entire generation, Griff Rhys Jones might be famous for being the man who takes Rory McGrath and Dara O'Briain sailing, climbs mountains, and presents It'll Be Alright On The Night.

The last in this series of three sees him back at the BBC performing the kind of sketches that made him a household name on Not The Nine O'Clock News and Alas Smith and Jones.

And while the humour is so comfortably old-fashioned your first impression might be that these sketches have been sitting in a drawer since the 1990s, on closer inspection you'll see that there's a whole new bunch of modern obsessions to joke about.

The Reservoir Dogs spoof featuring Griff as Mr Green and former EastEnder Larry Lamb is a lovely mix of the old and the new. But one sketch about firearms in schools, is so mis-judged it wouldn't be a laughing matter in this or any decade.

Griff's other guest stars, Hugh Bonneville, Tom Hollander and Kevin McNally, are well chosen.

But the real draw of the night sees him reunited with his comedy and business partner Mel Smith for a brand new head-to-head sketch - their first together in 16 years.

After resurrecting the comedy of Lenny Henry and Jasper Carrott, there are plenty of other folk who were funny in the 80s who we'd like to see dusted off. More please.

"We want to return to the old-fashioned comedy sketch standard," the young lad from the BBC tells Griff Rhys Jones. "There'll be a set with sofas, fat suits and highly coloured wigs, and you dressed as a woman,"he adds encouragingly, as if Jones needed persuading back into the comedy spotlight.

Some impressive guest stars (Hugh Bonneville, Tom Hollander and Larry Lamb among them) pop up in sketches that certainly have that old-fashioned comic quality - you could safely watch them with your granny. However, it's the updating of their trademark Alas Smith & Jones head-to-head sketch with his old partner Mel Smith that really makes this special.

It's the first time they've performed it for 15 years and, as Smith and Jones meander their way through a discussion about their alleged rift, they come to realise that friendship is important and grudges are irrelevant. "It's taught me the value of camaraderie," concludes Mel. "Well ... it is a lovely cheese," agrees Griff.

Surprisingly, this is the funniest so far of these one-off sketch shows by faded comedy stars. Maybe it's because Griff Rhys Jones has moved successfully on to other TV ventures, but he's clearly not taking his return to comedy too seriously and as a result the laughter flows quickly and easily. Hugh Bonneville, Tom Hollander and Larry Lamb are among the excellent supporting players in sketches skewering everything from bankers' bonuses to football supporters. Plus, 16 years on, there's even a face-to-face with his old Alas Smith and Jones partner, Mel Smith.

Remember when they gave Ronnie Corbett his own show last Christmas and called it The One Ronnie? The idea is the same here, as we start a trio of shows involving veteran comics (Griff Rhys Jones and Jasper Carrott follow) who revive old characters and link up with guest stars. Lenny Henry has more old characters than most, and revives memories of sex-obsessed old gent Donovan Bogarde and "cru-shall" Brixton DJ Delbert Wilkins, now coming at us via YouTube.

The best sketch is a showcase for Peter Serafinowicz, playing a white bloke who can't stop talking in black patois, and there are decent spoofs of Twilight and Cee Lo Green videos.

There are quite a few things to be said about this panel show pilot made for digital channel Dave. First of all, it's better than Compete for the Meat.

Hosted by Alexander Armstrong, the main hook of this show is that the panellists - in this case Robert Webb, Katy Brand and Griff Rhys Jones - have to come up with the questions and they score points if their opponents fail to get them right. It has already been described as QI without the researchers.

There were some interesting things that popped up during the course of the show, such as the fact that in Victorian times green dye contained arsenic, so people were being slowly killed by their wallpaper. Not all the questions were based on far-flung info through, as one round consisted of trying to come up with funny questions to ask famous people. There was one example by Webb towards Louis Spence which I won't repeat here, but I can tell you mentioned the f-word.

One aspect that grabbed my attention was Dave Lamb, who was in the show's "Fact Bunker" checking out all the answers, and who only appeared on a television inside the studio. The thing is, I reviewed his radio show last week, in which he played an agoraphobic conspiracy theorist, and now he's on a TV show with a studio audience, but not appearing in front of them in the flesh. Is this where he gets his ideas from?

In terms of intellectual comedy, I don't think you can top QI, but Big Ask is a decent attempt and is no doubt much cheaper, which is important to a digital channel facing competition from bigger broadcasters. On this show they don''need to spend money on researchers - instead they spend the money on electronic tablets for each of the panellists, because let's be fair it is a bit of bore just using your mouth.

Having said that, I still think that it was an entertaining pilot and I hope a full series comes out of it.

Review: Alexander Armstrong's Big Ask

The format is essentially Alexander Armstrong presents a topic to a panel of three comedians and the panel must take it in turn to ask interesting questions to the other two panellists. Got it? To be honest Katy Brand, Griff Rhys Jones and Robert Webb didn't really get it either at first.

Quiz show producers looking to make cuts: why not do away with researchers altogether? Alexander Armstrong invites Robert Webb, Katy Brand and Griff Rhys Jones to not only answer some QI-style questions, but to come up with their own questions too. As Webb, grabbing the hand that feeds and munching it like a corncob, says: "We all know where we are. This channel isn't called David." If the pilot doesn't grab your attention, the tossed-together studio set might: a derangement of union flag coffee table and skyline glimpsed through American chatshow blinds.

Like a more relaxed version of QI after sinking a couple of glasses of Pinot Grigio, this new panel show asks its guests not only to provide the answers, but also to dream up the questions themselves from various "random" topics.

The money they've saved on employing researchers to do this must have been spent on guests because Robert Webb, Katy Brand and Griff Rhys Jones all look very happy to plonk themselves on the comfy armchairs and trot out the bizarre facts they just happen to know about Brazil or Captain Cook.

The show also boasts Dave Lamb (the voice of Come Dine With Me), who is criminally underused here as the fact checker in an underground bunker.

Hosting knockabout comedy quizzes is a useful sideline for Alexander Armstrong. But despite being the most comfortable host of Have I Got News for You, he doesn't always strike gold (Best of the Worst, Don't Call Me Stupid). Maybe this quiz pilot will change his fortunes. Contestants (Robert Webb, Katy Brand and Griff Rhys Jones) gain points for devising a question that will flummox the others, while Dave (Come Dine with Me) Lamb chips in from the "Fact Bunker". It's more Reithian than the average panel show, but the best bits are the detours: Webb goading Armstrong with "I like it when you do your One Show voice", and Jones looking peeved with a low score for one of his jokes.