Roger Law regrets 'hurtful' Janet Street-Porter puppet

Spitting Image's creator revealed his regret over a 'hurtful' puppet of Loose Women presenter Janet Street-Porter that 'went a little too far'.

The "bonkers panel show, as Edmonds/Partridge might put it, continues with two teams attempting to persuade an army of invading aliens we're actually worth saving. An uphill struggle, some would say, given almost any recent news headline. Still, the likes of Janet Street-Porter and Una Stubbs give it their best shot.

As a younger show with an "open door" submissions policy - meaning that anyone can send in material for consideration - the topical sketch series Newsjack (Radio 4 Extra, Thursday) ought to be edgier, weirder, less formulaic than The News Quiz; but ends up, somehow, being just as complacent. Currently fronted by the comedian Nish Kumar, with assistance from a revolving cast of comics and actors, it's one of a small group of original, non-archival series on 4 Extra.

This week's half-hour instalment was dispiriting in the way that only really unfunny comedy can be. A skit about a plane that had been forced to land at Heathrow because of a broken lavatory careered out of the radio and landed with a tin clunk on the floor. The nadir was reached during a skit about politicians doing drugs, in which Nicola Sturgeon was represented by someone doing a generic Scottish accent, David Cameron by someone who sounded vaguely like Ed Miliband, Ed Miliband by someone who sounded like a young Janet Street-Porter, and Nigel Farage by a woman making no attempt to do an accent at all.

Why does BBC radio so consistently fudge this kind of thing? Neither series is doing anything that pushes a boundary, finds an edge, or ventures anywhere outside of an ideological comfort zone. Chris Morris's On the Hour, commissioned by Radio 4 nearly 25 years ago, retains more bite in a single sketch than they managed across an hour of broadcast time. Here's hoping it doesn't take another quarter-century for the BBC to try something different.

Radio Times review

A return to form this week as Joyce takes some time off and bumps into old flame Cyril (Matthew Kelly), whose fortunes have taken a nose dive. She leaves Leslie, the normally affable transvestite, in charge of the Solana and the power instantly goes to his head - an implausible transformation, but it taps into Tim Healy's comic potential. He's never been funnier.

Meanwhile, Donald and Jacqueline take Big Donna's ashes on a last hurrah through town, and Madge has some startling news for Mick and Janice. It's a busy, farcical episode that even has room for a cameo from Janet Street-Porter.

Radio Times review

QI loves to stray towards the saucepot at the best of times, let alone when the episode theme is "Kinky". So tonight's episode is not recommended for the prudish, covering as it does electrically assisted kissing, sex with pigeons and a boy who got a certain body part trapped between powerful magnets. And that's the stuff we can print.

At one point Fry uses super-saturated sodium acetate and exothermic nucleation (apparently) to make instant crystals into a rude shape, while Johnny Vegas sings the theme from The Snowman. It's one of the oddest sequences you'll see on television, ever. Also steering through the smut are Sandi Toksvig and Janet Street-Porter.

Adrian Edmondson wins Celebrity MasterChef 2013

Comic actor beats Les Dennis and Janet Street-Porter with 'mind-blowing' three-course meal of venison and sea bass.

The best bit of this comedy panel show has to be the ingenious 3D models that illustrate the pet hates of Frank Skinner's guests. What will they come up with for Extreme Fishing With Robson Green, which gets Janet Street-Porter's goat? Among Ben Fogle's bugbears is the suitcase on wheels, while skyscraper comedian Greg Davies - The Inbetweeners' stern head - really, really, really hates pointless TV interviews with members of the public. Let the squabbles commence.

Radio Times review

You wouldn't expect Janet Street-Porter and Ben Fogle to agree on much and they don't. But they give Room 101 exactly the injection of friction it needs as they clash on the rights and wrongs of multichannel TV and wheelie cases. Fogle disdains both, but Street-Porter's first beef is more specific: she loathes Extreme Fishing with Robson Green for its shoutiness: "Simplistic twaddle!" argues the journalist famed for her calm and nuanced approach.

But it's Greg Davies, the man with the angriest eyebrows in comedy, who really gets the programme's comic juices flowing. His rant/routine about pointless TV interviews with members of the public is a joy.

When it comes to spoof documentaries nothing will ever top Rob Reiner's This Is Spinal Tap. But the brother-and-sister writing-and-acting team of Rebecca and Jeremy Front have come pretty close with this superb observational comedy series.

Each stand-alone drama has Jeremy spending 24 hours with a woman of note, who also happens to be a total nightmare. Rebecca, of course, plays them all and they range from a TV psychic to a working-class opera diva, via a drunken war photographer, an evil-genius geneticist and a brash, TV-friendly hack and author.

Jeremy is joined in each "documentary" by real experts who attempt to throw light upon the ghastly woman in question. Robert Winston, Janet Street-Porter, psychologist Richard Wiseman and 60s photographer David Steen all turn in quality performances, but the stand-out new drama talent for me for is Jeremy Paxman.

He attempts to get a quip-free straight answer out of the abhorrent journalist Lucy Winterton but gives up when she wears him down with her, "I put the pun into pundit" responses. This is not just good, it's excellent and shows that quality writing can transform radio comedy into something that's laugh-out-loud funny.