TV matters: The Impressions Show

Jon Culshaw does a spot-on impression of . . . Alistair McGowan.

Did Jon Culshaw make a good impression?

The Impressions Show got off to a rocky start in some ways, but it was an easy and undemanding watch - although quite why BBC1 have decided to broadcast it at 9.45pm on a Saturday is anyone's guess! It would find a more appreciative audience around 8pm on a weekday, if you ask me.

Jon Culshaw (Dead Ringers) and Debra Stephenson (Frankie Baldwin in Coronation Street) join forces in this new sketch show featuring their range of almost flawless impersonations. With his brilliant George W Bush on Dead Ringers, Culshaw has already established himself as a John Sessions for the Noughties. It's remarkable, though, that Stephenson hasn't unveiled her impersonating skill until now. She does a mean (in both senses) Anne Robinson, and performs some impressive facial gymnastics as a hyperventilating Davina McCall getting so excited over a bedtime story she ends up upside down. As is eternally the way with these shows, the quality of the jokes lags behind the success of the impressions themselves. The sight of Culshaw and Stephenson as Adrian Chiles and Christine Bleakley on the sofa of The One Show is as banal as the original - though it's made up for by Culshaw's superbly dead-eyed Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall barbecuing a polecat on Autumnwatch in front of Stephenson's Kate Humble. Most impressively of all, Stephenson nails the voices of not just one but both Minogues - Kylie as an irrepressibly sunny little pixie, and Dannii a steely, glacial automaton.

You can picture the scene... an executive at BBC entertainment groans as ITV's Harry Hill's TV Burp grows more popular with each series. "Get me something like that!" she/he barks. "Something that takes the mickey out of everyone on the telly. People like watching that on a Saturday." The result is far, far better than you'd expect. Either the producers have crammed all their best efforts into the first episode or this mock-celebrity-filled sketch show is a winner. It doesn't hurt that Jon Culshaw and Debra Stephenson are right on the money with almost all their impressions. Culshaw gets Michael McIntyre's strange, high/low voice perfectly and his Ross Kemp on Gangs spoof where Kemp meets the Famous Five ("The whole gang is clearly off their head on ginger beer") works a treat. Stephenson, meanwhile, is equally convincing as Dannii Minogue or a grimacing Davina McCall. Why it's quite so enjoyable to see, say, Ray Mears impersonated to a tee or some lovingly imagined links from The One Show is anyone's guess. But it is.

Does the world really need a new impressions show? Probably not, but this new vehicle for Jon Culshaw, along with Corrie refugee Debra Stephenson isn't too bad on the whole. Katy Brand and Kevin Bishop could learn a thing or two from this.

Jon Culshaw on The Impressions Show

Ahead of his new BBC series, Jon Culshaw tells Andrew Pettie the secrets of his uncanny impressions.

Bell tolls for Dead Ringers

The BBC has called time on long-running radio and TV impressions show Dead Ringers. The corporation confirmed today that the show, which starred comedians such as Jon Culshaw, Jan Ravens and Phil Cornwell, would not be returning.

Bell tolls for Dead Ringers

The BBC has called time on long-running radio and TV impressions show Dead Ringers. The corporation confirmed today that the show, which starred comedians such as Jon Culshaw, Jan Ravens and Phil Cornwell, would not be returning.

For the past few weeks Radio 4 has been running a series of late Monday night one-off comedy shows in pursuit of a series. "Patchy" would be the best way to describe them - until this week, when The Secret World came along to show that not only can an old dog learn new tricks, some of them are better.

It reunites the Dead Ringers pair of Bill Dare (producer, writer) and Jon Culshaw, man of a thousand voices, some of which were getting a bit tired. Now Culshaw and a team of impressionists sure to become more famous than they are at the moment have come up with some new ones. Cunningly, some of them are of people whose real voices are unfamiliar.

Mike Leigh is famous, but not for his voice, so we have to take it on trust that it's him running a thriving business providing Method actors as cheap labour while they research parts. And as for Ehud Olmert and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad waking up in bed together after a crazy UN party, all we got was generic Middle Eastern accents.

This meant that the writers had to come up with things that were funny in their own right and, let's face it, the leaders of Israel and Iran in a gay love tryst was not that much of a thigh-slapper. But Peaches Geldof being shocked to discover that her father was involved in that gathering of "dad bands", Live Aid, was. As was Jools Holland trying to escape from a Misery-style stalker. And Amy Winehouse auditioning for the role of Maria in The Sound of Music.