Johnny Vegas

Small-time dope dealer Moz is now even smaller as it's a relatively svelte looking Johnny Vegas who returns for a fifth series.

And there's good news for those shell-shocked by the apparent death of his friend Jenny at the end of series four. Turns out she's not dead, she's in a persistent vegetative state - and there's arguably more intelligent brain waves going on in her head now than we ever saw from her before.

From her vantage point propped up in bed in Moz's living room, she sees the world now in a series of song and dance numbers - making a series that was already on the edges of weird just that little bit weirder.

By way of making amends, Moz announces that he's giving up dealing - a development that none of his regular stream of oddball clients can quite get their heads around. And every one of them is convinced that they can snap Jenny out it.

Although as Moz points out: "She's in a coma. Not in a sulk."

He's no Lee Mead, of course, but we can see Johnny Vegas taking over as Joseph - although they might have to let out his multi-coloured coat somewhat. Indeed, the prospect of a singing-dancing Vegas looms large with the return of his entertaining big-on-awards, small-on-viewers slacker sitcom. Tonight, coma-bound pal Jenny hallucinates a number of musical dream sequences...

Johnny Vegas returns with a shuffle and a sigh as hapless drug dealer Moz. Entertaining an endless stream of zany clients in his poky Manchester bedsit, he's an acquired comic taste. Series five comes with the shock news that Moz has decided to go straight - although it's not enough to wake his girlfriend Jenny. She's in a coma, entertaining even zanier all-singing, all-dancing visions (the opening number stars a barely recognisable Moz as a slick, suited crooner). This is for those that like their gags surreal, bawdy and more than a little off-key.

Dave Gorman's guest tonight is a slimmed-down, healthy-looking Johnny Vegas, who is called upon to decide which ideas are pure genius and which are the product of unsound minds. One scheme is for so-called dating insurance: a couple puts money in a pot every week and, when they split up, the one who has been dumped gets the cash. Better still is the gentleman who has invented a box for the torture of inanimate objects. Why? "Because inanimate objects are so intensely annoying and there are very few ways you really get back at them." The most alarming moment is when Vegas gets into bed with Gorman to demonstrate a fully wrap-around duvet. Forces are unleashed that are very hard to control.

This fun little show has been coming on leaps and bounds over the weeks after a slightly off-colour start. Tonight sees the always lovely Dave Gorman joined by Johnny Vegas, who is going to bring his tap-room wit and stout clagged phlegm to the proceedings. As ever, the real stars of the show are the contestants who have come up with 'genius' ideas and invention that are wilfully impractical and often quite surreal.

A Question of Royalty, the Afternoon Play, was a knockabout caper with top notes of topicality. "This could destabilise the whole country!" was an early line, on the day of the G20 protests. "The aristocrats go, the whole bloody lot collapses." And there was a nod to April Fool's gags, with a plotline about the Queen's marriage being invalid as it hadn't been properly officiated, "leaving all their offspring little bas ...", as light-fingered plasterer Bernie (Johnny Vegas) blurted out.

But mainly, Andrew Lynch's drama was concerned with timeless comedy dependables. Toffs versus "the lumpen proletariat", north versus south, skint versus affluent, true love versus a good marriage: these gave the play its structure and mood, and produced hilarious worlds-colliding moments.

Civil servants threw the might of the establishment at the plasterers, who had inadvertently stolen the royal marriage certificate ("you've admitted treason; we can hang you"), and Ricky Tomlinson, as the other bungling thief, tried to bribe them with goods of dodgy provenance ("we might even be able to get you some topsoil"). Every line from Tomlinson was gloriously delivered, and very funny.

Ricky Tomlinson and Johnny Vegas shine as two enterprising brothers, itinerant Liverpool plasterers, contracted onto a refurbishment job at the Public Records office, who stumble on a great State secret when they nick the Queen's marriage certificate. Andrew Lynch's comedy is full of sharp digs about "that nice royal butler we know", knowing insights into the sly life, close encounters with authority, quick glimpses of the difference between what a man really says to his wife and what he tells his mates. Funny, but a bit slow to get going.

Benidorm filming disrupted - Vegas gets gout

Comic Johnny Vegas has suffered another bout of gout while filming his hit series Benidorm. Production of the Costa del Sol sitcom was suspended last week after the 37-year-old star was struck down with the condition.

Creating comedy from controversy demands more than regulars Marcus Brigstocke and Rufus Hound merely spouting near-nonsense loudly and provocatively. Still, the guests in this show, including Dara O'Briain, Johnny Vegas and Frankie Boyle, show how it's done.

All New Shooting Stars, a one-off special, was an object lesson in never going back. Vic and Bob seemed like their own fathers. The only recognisable celebrity was Jack Dee, who, with a blue tit balanced on his head, stood nose to nose with an opera singer giving Nessun Dorma plenty of welly. Any trembling or precipitation of the tit would indicate failure and cost him a beautiful pillowcase. To watch Dee crack into a smile was joy enough for one night.