Kathy Burke's appearance on I've Never Seen Star Wars did nothing to dispel that notion that she is a national treasure (and made me think how good she'd be with her own show, just playing stuff she likes and chatting to people).

As the title indicates, the show - shunted off for this fourth series to the railway siding, relatively speaking, of Radio 4 Extra - exposes its subject to new experiences, and it always makes for a jolly half-hour. The studio-bound format is slightly frustrating, though: Burke had never been to Harrods, and judging by the account she gave the host, Marcus Brigstocke, it could have been a programme in itself. She clearly had some fun in the pets department, with the full-body grooms and blueberry and vanilla facials for dogs. And she wasn't put off by the general snootiness: at one point, she said, she asked one of the uniformed types hanging around, "Are you called a shop assistant?" He leaned over and said, "No, madam, we're sales associates."

Another thing she'd never done - true to the title - was see Star Wars, and it proved to be a revelation. "The parodies made sense all of a sudden ... I was in a French and Saunders sketch and I had these buns on - that's who I was supposed to be." Go on, you BBC suits - sign her up and let her loose.

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Two excellent autobiographical shorts in the Little Crackers season beginning with Stephen Fry recalling his time as a rule-breaker at his strict public school (the young Fry winningly played by Daniel Roche). Then, at 9.15pm, Kathy Burke remembers the final day of school exams when all she could dream of being was a writer for the NME.

Little Crackers review: Short and Sweet

Obviously Stephen Fry and Kathy Burke deserve much credit for their excellent work, but knocking up short scripts like these shouldn't have been too demanding for such talented thespians. The real credit should probably go to Sky for commissioning this original format.

Running nightly this week are this year's seasonal shorts little crackers from Sky One, which annually tries to make up for the dearth of decent original drama and comedy from January-November by gorging us with a festive selection box featuring some of the best-known names in the business.

This time they've got the likes of Victoria Wood, Catherine Tate, Stephen Fry, Kathy Burke, Julian Barratt, Jo Brand, Bill Bailey - oh, the list goes on, basically anyone who's ever appeared on a panel game is either appearing in, writing or directing one of these 12-minute films, mostly based on autobiographical stories about their childhoods.

And like a selection box, there are a few yucky praline noisette ones. David Baddiel's film is as annoying as he is, though it does feature a good impersonation of Record Breakers star Norris McWhirter by Alastair McGowan, who must have been delighted to get a chance to do an impression he probably last did as a child. Chris O'Dowd has a dull grumpy Santa story and Dawn French oddly casts herself as the late Queen Mother.

But there are some nice strawberry cream ones too: Victoria Wood's is a sweet, nostalgic tale, Julian Barratt's teenaged heavy metallers are quirky and Kathy Burke's memory of meeting Joe Strummer is endearing. Anyway, they're all over so quickly that even the ho-hum ones are watchable enough - shame though that for Sky, decent original programmes come barely more than once a year.

Christmas may have peaked too soon because Little Crackers (Sky1), a set of short films loosely based on the theme of childhood and featuring top comedy writer/performers, got off to a, er, cracking start with a brace of offerings from Victoria Wood and The IT Crowd's Chris O'Dowd.

Wood's Lancastrian meander down a dark memory lane was touching and familiar, O'Dowd brought a cheeky lump to the throat with a tale about a lad who always wanted Subbuteo yet got lumbered with a hand-me-down Barbie (with moustache).

As an idea for a Christmas series, it's right on the stocking. Kathy Burke channelling X-Ray Spex and The Clash is still to come and tonight's offering from Catherine Tate, featuring a shock-headed ginger of painful shyness who wees herself at frequent intervals is laugh-out-loud funny.

You have been warned.

A nightly season of short autobiographical films featuring some of Britain's best comic talent opens tonight with stories by Victoria Wood and Chris O'Dowd. Dawn French, Stephen Fry, Bill Bailey, Kathy Burke, Jo Brand and Catherine Tate are among those writing, narrating and starring in these seasonal dramatisations of their lives, often with stories recalled from their childhood. It's a bit hit-and-miss. Wood's is on first, though hers is the only story not to feature a younger version of herself. The IT Crowd's O'Dowd follows with an amusing story of why as a boy he thought Santa was a "big weirdo".

Comics meet their mini-me

A London teenager is to star as a young Kathy Burke in a new season of short British comedies for Christmas.Louise Jury, Chief Arts