Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie reunite on GOLD

Comedy stars Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie are to be reunited on TV for the first time in 15 years. The pair will appear on GOLD to mark the 30 years since they first teamed up.

Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie make TV comeback

Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie are to reunite for a TV special to mark the 30th anniversary of their partnership.

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Shown on Christmas Day last year, this 60-minute documentary was made to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the sitcom. Rowan Atkinson talks about the development of his character, Edmund Blackadder, plus there are interviews with the core cast (Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie and Tony Robinson) and writing team (Ben Elton and Richard Curtis).

Not for Kevin Bishop the diplomatic approach: his sketch show puts the boot into the foibles of the entertainment industry he's intrinsically a part of. Impersonations - a staple of Bishop's comedy - are pretty thin fare on their own, but this rapid-fire sketch show also hits some worthy targets. In tonight's show, we are shown the tragedy of Derren Brown's cab-driving brother, Darren, see Hugh Laurie's out-takes from House, and - most enjoyably - observe TV comedy's boom-and-bust duo James Corden and Mathew Horne in a remake of On the Buses.

A bout of Fry v Laurie

On Sunday two of Britain's national treasures, whose surnames have been entwined in the public consciousness since their comedy show A Bit of Fry and Laurie first aired on BBC Two in 1988, compete for our affections. At 9pm, you can see Stephen Fry as a Norfolk solicitor in Kingdom. Meanwhile at the same time on Sky 1, you could watch House, starring Hugh Laurie as a medical genius. It's time to decide who is better - Fry or Laurie?

Although it was nearly canned after its first run in 1983, Blackadder as a series ran for six years (while spanning 500 years of history), making household names of its stars. This has more padding than Nursie's bustle and Rowan Atkinson is conspicuous by his absence but interviews with Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie in particular make the 25th anniversary special - first shown in October last year - thoroughly entertaining.

Fry's delight

Quizmaster Stephen Fry is joined by two of his best buddies in this week's QI. It's a real luvvie fest, thanks to the presence of John Sessions, who's appeared on the show several times before, and first-timer Emma Thompson. She and Fry go way back, of course. They met at Cambridge, and were members of the famous Footlights troupe, which also included Tony Slattery and Hugh Laurie. They've appeared on screen together in such projects as Alfresco and Peter's Friends.

Any ad-libbed, improvised show requires a special skill from the players, and in a professional sense they are living dangerously. There was an occasion in Just a Minute when the subject was snapshots. Kenneth Williams was unhappy about one of my decisions, which went against him on this subject, and he began to harass me. Peter Jones and Derek Nimmo joined in, which added to the pressure. In an effort to bring them to order, I said: "I'm sorry Kenneth, you were deviating from snapshots, you were well away from snapshots. It is with Peter, snopshots, er snipshots, er snopshits . . . snop . . . snaps." The audience roared with laughter. I added: "I'm not going to repeat the subject. I think you know it . . . and I think I may have finished my career in radio."

QI, however much it tries to be subtly different, is part of a glorious tradition. When radio first presented panel shows they cast them from those with a proven intellectual background. This mold was broken in the early 1960s, when Jimmy Edwards devised a programme for the Home Service, with himself as chairman, called Does the Team Think?. The panellists were all well-known comedians, Tommy Trinder, Cyril Fletcher and others, who proved that comics were just as intelligent as academics, and usually much funnier.

QI is a direct descendant. And when you have Stephen Fry, and contestants such as Alan Davies, Hugh Laurie and Danny Baker, and a producer of the calibre of John Lloyd, the BBC must be on to a winner.