'Jerry was freaked out' - the writer of Jerry Springer: The Opera on their showdown

In the brilliantly crude opera, the talk show host ends up in hell after being shot by a nappy-wearing fetishist aiming at the KKK. But, recalls the smash hit's writer Richard Thomas, that's not what upset the TV legend when he finally saw the show.

The last in the current series of the awkward panto/chat crossover has a guest list that, like the jokes in the script, isn't bursting with contemporary freshness: Ray Mears, Jerry Springer and Boy George are the visitors, with Boy George the gamest because he's brought his mum, Dinah.

Lee Mack's fact-checking panel show - a kind of GCSE version of QI - returns for a third series, continuing its ongoing quest to verify all manner of urban mythology. Tonight's series opener invites Jerry Springer, Emma Bunton and Jason Byrne to the Duck pod, each armed with a pet fact to be tested to quacking point. After proving to the world that dog urine glows under ultraviolet light and that toilets tend to flush in E flat, it seems that no scientific theory is safe.

The Methuselah-like panel show begins its 47th series, with Jennifer Saunders in the host's seat for the first time. How she's never landed the gig before when the likes of Fern Britton and Jerry Springer have is a mystery. Elsewhere, Pointless chap Richard Osman will put his panel show nous (he's had a hand in creating 8 Out Of 10 Cats and Charlie Brooker vehicle You Have Been Watching) to good use as a guest panellist. It's years past its real peak, but still diverting enough.