Joe Pasquale: I can be serious too!

Joe Pasquale has revealed he'd like his career to follow that of Tony Robinson.

Watching the antics of Maisie and Pete (sexy couple in relationship set-to), Sharon and John (not-so-sexy couple who worry they're getting boring) and Blue (party animal who tends to wake up in abandoned supermarket trollies) was a bit like watching an episode of Hollyoaks but with added funnies.

More interesting were those on the periphery of this pilot: the tubby pair of community support officers bonded by naivety and fantasies; and Josh, played by Joe Pasquale's round-faced son, Joe Tracini, trying to earn the love of sperm donor dad Neil Morrissey, an intriguing proposition if ever I saw one.

This one will need time to grow - unlike Grandma's House, which has the makings of a sure-fire hit.

A new pub-based BBC3 sitcom, which means a drink simile. The comedy equivalent of a shot made from the contents of fluorescent bottles of sugary meths masquerading as booze, which curdles, solidifies and turns your brain inside-out. It mixes Friends with Two Pints and Spaced and Ideal and ends up with a coagulated mess on the pavement outside. A pleasantly zingy aftertaste is provided by Joe Pasquale's son playing a stalky loon, but even that'll just make you feel worse come morning.

Comedy Rocks with Jason Manford was a one-off end-of-the-pier ­special that simply wasn't cut out for telly. This is the 21st Century, where we ­expect short sharp punchy scenes and fast editing. As opposed to a guy from Liverpool doing 10 continuous minutes of stand-up.

OK for a night out. But on a night in... a ­definite no-no. Jason's amusing enough in a gentle sort of way. Jo Brand's a reliable old warhorse. And with throwaway lines like "My granddad was an Elvis ­impersonator - but there wasn't much call for that in 1938", squeaky Joe Pasquale had me laughing out loud.

Some Northern ­comic called John Bishop seemed to believe that blokes don't send text messages. Tell that to Ashley Cole.

All too old-fashioned. Despite contributions from up-to-date ­popsters Scouting For Girls and Pixie Lott, the entire production was like something from a bygone age.

Friday night not at the Palladium.

ITV launch their own take on Live At The Apollo with Mancunian comic Jason Manford. Comedy Rocks features stand-up from the likes of scouse man of the moment John Bishop plus Jo Brand and bright young comic, er, Joe Pasquale. The show will be filmed the day before transmission so expect plenty of topical gags. As if that wasn't funny enough, there's live music from Pixie Lott and Scouting For Girls.

Jason Manford hosts a new Friday-night variety show, which is recorded the day before transmission to keep it as topical as possible. "It's a mixture of music and comedy," he says. "But the music will all be live and the comedy will be varied. Among the performers will be John Bishop, Jo Brand and (to mix it up a bit) Joe Pasquale." Manford is the ideal choice as presenter. Most people don't like being screamed at at the end of the week and he is a relaxed and genial comedian - a bit like the pleasant bloke in the pub who makes his mates laugh with gentle stories about the oddities of his family. With luck his personality will set the tone, although the words "ITV" and "variety show" together have an ominous ring.

On the press release, host Jason Manford describes his new show, ominously, as a "variety event" - as in "I'm really looking forward to being part of this variety event on ITV." I'm fairly sure those words never passed his lips, but the PR-speak is revealing: it's intended to be "event" TV - that is, a big show with a live, shiny feel to it. And to ward off too many comparisons with Live at the Apollo (surely an inspiration), they're playing up the "variety" idea, because there will be music acts, too, namely Pixie Lott and Scouting for Girls. As well as Manford, Jo Brand, Joe Pasquale, ventriloquist Paul Zerdin and "Merseyside's motormouth" John Bishop will provide the laughs.

This variety show is the equivalent of a late-period Oasis album - some of the people involved may once have been vaguely entertaining (Jason Manford, John Bishop and Jo Brand) but it's far too broad strokes (Joe Pasquale, Pixie Lott), it'll have a title that means nothing, and you know that you probably wouldn't get on with anyone who really likes it.

Having interviewed him a couple of times, we know Manford has good taste in comedy. Unfortunately, he's never going to be able to display that taste and will probably have to settle for being a wittier Peter Kay-lite. Imagine having to introduce Scouting For Girls as a career: it's no job for a man.

The All Star Impression Show was ITV1's big novelty entertainment show for Boxing Day, wherein celebrities did impressions of other celebrities - except for Joe Pasquale, who came on and was Joe Pasquale, in an oddly unconvincing manner.

For weeks before broadcast, ITV1 had promoted the show as if it were the magnificent glazed goose of its Christmas schedules, to be placed on our table to cries of "God bless you, good broadcasting sir!" In the event, The All Star Impression Show was essentially ITV1 bringing a roast cat to the dinner table, garnished with minced rat stuffing.

Eamonn Holmes as Elvis Presley kicked off proceedings. You need not ask which era Elvis he chose. This was not '68 Comeback Special; it was more 99 Flake Comeback Special. Indeed, in sunglasses and goitre, Holmes could have removed the cape and gone on to knock off both Roy Orbison and Carlos the Jackal, but sadly lacked the imaginative expanse to do so.

He was followed by what appeared to be Arsène Wenger doing a camp Jimmy Corkhill from Brookside - a frankly mind-blowing concept - but which perusal of the credits revealed to be a comedian called Stevie Riks doing Paul O'Grady. I hope that the confusion over this conveys some measure of how surreally awful the whole thing was, like a collection of your more lacklustre in-laws suddenly deciding to put on a revue, apparently written by their parents and occasionally studded with someone from Coronation Street.

Things reached their "WTF?" apogee with a sketch that involved Bobby Davro as Chris Tarrant, the wrinkles drawn on to his face with black felt-tip, and Les Dennis playing Gary Barlow as someone with no distinguishing physical or conversational features whatsoever, in a bath. Naked.

The skit revolved around Barlow trying to guess how Tarrant washed - "You gonna use your loofah?" - and peaked with Dennis rising, wholly naked, from the bath, genitals covered in a distressingly meagre slick of bath-foam. It may even have been Matey.

This, then, is why so many of us found ourselves at the bottom of the garden at 4am, sitting on a wet trampoline with a bad uncle. This, then, was Christmas.

This could possibly be the most deranged variety show you'll ever see, the only place on earth where you can watch Christopher Biggins pretending to be Boris Johnson, and Jerry Hall impersonating Katie Price. If that doesn't draw you in, how about Joe Pasquale as Lady Ga-Ga? Or Ulrika Jonsson as David Beckham? No? Surely Vanessa Feltz masquerading as James May is irresistible. As is Eamonn Holmes as Elvis Presley. And David Gest as Elton John. Les Dennis as Gary Barlow... The list goes on, and just gets odder. The All Star Impressions Show could be completely awful or it could be enjoyably barmy. It certainly has a very good pedigree, being co-produced by Steve Coogan's and Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer's production companies. And it has a certain surreal gloss that could be quite winning. Harry Hill will make a guest appearance, though we don't know whether he will reprise the Morrissey impression that won him Celebrity Stars in Their Eyes all those years ago.