The second of Richard Curtis's romcoms, following Four Weddings, about bumbling good eggs and frightfully pretty girls. Hugh Grant plays a bookseller who pulls a film star (Julia Roberts) - it's amusing, in particular when Grant's character ineptly poses as a journalist from Horse & Hound at a press junket for a sci-fi movie.

Aha! Alan Partridge, elder statesman of broadcasting

As Steve Coogan's alter-ego Alan Partridge returns, Michael Deacon salutes a gloriously awful anti-hero.

Hit the Road Jack is on Channel 4 but it feels more like BBC Three. Even by the standards of youth programming it's hyperactively hectic. The 'Jack' of the title is Jack Whitehall, a young comedian with the looks of a boy band cutie, and the show is... well, it isn't really any one type of show. It's just an excuse to have Whitehall on screen.

Each week, he'll visit a different part of Britain - not that we'll see much of whichever part it is, because most of the show takes place in a TV studio. Last night the studio was in Wales. He began with two minutes of jokes about the country; hurtled into a skit in which he supposedly tricked Welsh rugby players into thinking he was an "alternative rugby guru"; then an interview with Welsh actress Ruth Jones that lasted all of 90 seconds; a micro-feature about "how to fit in" with the Welsh (conclusion: join a male voice choir); 25 seconds' more chat with Jones; into the ad break with five, yes five, seconds of music from guest rapper Lethal Bizzle (not to worry, Bizzle fans: at the end of the show he was allowed to play for a whole two minutes)...

Whitehall himself is likeable and amusing. "To impress you guys I decided to learn the name of that Welsh railway station everyone goes on about. Ready? 'Car... diff... Cen... tral'." Insecurely, the camera kept cutting away to shots of the studio audience hooting and cheering. Message: "Look how much these people are enjoying themselves! This man must be good!"

He is, but it's a funny thing about audiences: the more hysterically the one in the studio raves, the less the one at home feels inclined to join them.

After 10 years, this is the last run of this splendidly silly review of the week's TV. Against all odds, it's become one of ITV's most popular shows. Before TV Burp, Hill had a series on Channel 4, but was thought too odd for the mainstream, perhaps because of his routines involving puppet badgers named after minor celebrities (for example, "Tasmin Archer Badger").

At first, ITV1 dumped TV Burp into late-night slots. Not till the third series was repeated on Sunday teatimes did ITV1 realise it had a hit. From series four, TV Burp has been a fixture of Saturday teatimes. Audiences of eight million tuned in to see soap dialogue mocked, reality shows spoofed, and sequences so bizarre no other ITV show would attempt them. One week, Hill persuaded a dozen of TV's biggest stars to stare down the lens and say, in a puzzled tone, "Ear cataracts?" (It made sense at the time. Actually it didn't, but it was still funny.) Lately, though, Hill has wearied of watching 10 hours' TV a day, which is why he's quitting. In autumn, TV Burp will be replaced with a hidden camera show by Trigger Happy TV's Dom Joly. But who's funnier: Joly or Hill? "There's only one way to find out!"

A lesson from Les Dawson in free thinking

Comedy in the Seventies seems to have been packed with out-and-proud Tories.

British Comedy Awards 2011: Who deserves to win?

Ahead of the British Comedy Awards ceremony, Michael Deacon give his pick of the funniest TV of 2011.

Warwick Davis on Life's Too Short

Being 3ft 6in has never stopped Warwick Davis from getting what he wants, from a role as an Ewok to his own Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant sitcom Life's Too Short.

A new series, sir? Did she want it, sir? - Interview

Paul Whitehouse and Charlie Higson talk about getting older and why they decided to make a new series of The Fast Show - but not for the BBC.

Fresh Meat, Channel 4, review

Fresh Meat is just one episode old, but already it may be the most painful comedy about social awkwardness that our gulping, stammering land has yet produced.

Russ Abbot interview: toasting the magic Tommy Cooper

Russ Abbot tells Michael Deacon about playing the irrepressible comic Tommy Cooper for new Radio 3 drama, Glass Chair Chair Glass.