Remember what 50-year-old Mary Bale threw into a wheelie bin, briefly bagging her the title of most hated woman in Britain? And ten points and a moulding turkey leg to anyone who can name the lady Gordon Brown dubbed "ignorant" during his doomed election campaign? Jimmy Carr knows, but do the celebrities whose agents have signed them up to be interrogated on his daft end of year quiz? These include Jonathan Ross, Ruth Jones, Alan Carr and Michael McIntyre. But Channel 4 haven't yet let slip who the A-list question-setters are - previous guest coups included Bono, Ricky Gervais and Quentin Tarantino. Let's hope the celebs have been devouring the tabloids all year on the off chance that they're called upon to regurgitate it with an amusing trim, for a generous fee, naturally.

Another Monday; another hour of Alan Carr squawking at celebrities in the name of light entertainment. This week, the guests included Cheryl Cole, Michael McIntyre and the unfathomable loudness of Stacey Solomon, all of whom were surrounded by tinsel and general festive tat, just in case we'd forgotten that Christmas was almost upon us.

Jungle queen Stacey and jungle profanity-provider Shaun Ryder appeared first on the show, covering such topics as Gillian McKeith and Solomon's disastrous appearance on the X Factor final.

The questions were rightly light-hearted and as the always-watchable McIntyre came on to talk about his impending Britain's Got Talent gig, the show became even more festively cheery.

All that energy seemed to rub off on our host, as his pre-chat stand-up was on much better form than last week and he generally seemed less nervous, bouncing off his sprightly guests.

But what would happen when the omnipresent Ms. Cole came on stage? Could she maintain the energy of the programme? It seemed unlikely, given her propensity to talk at a speed suggestive of strong sedative consumption.

Sure enough, once an ill-advised acoustic performance of one of Cheryl's songs was out of the way, the show got bogged down in conversation about X Factor controversies. As Cole (very slowly) defended herself, it all became a bit bleak, but she soon perked up and though she did discuss her brush with malaria, not a single tear was shed.

This show is only ever going to be as good as its guests and tonight it was very good indeed.

Time to forget all your troubles, kick back, relax and laugh at a show you probably saw back in April. The O2 Arena plays host to literally quite a few comedians in a show put on to raise money for Great Ormond Street Hospital Children's Charity; so even if the likes of Jack Whitehall, Jason Manford, Michael McIntyre and James Corden aren't funny then at least some good will come from this. There are plenty of good turns here as well from David Mitchell, Jo Brand, Sean Lock and Kevin Eldon.

Michael McIntyre thought they wanted a BGT contestant

Britain's Got Talent judge Michael McIntyre initially thought Simon Cowell was asking him to be a contestant, not an adjudicator, on the show.

Michael McIntyre talks to Chris Evans about BGT

Comedian Michael McIntyre talks to Chris Evans on BBC Radio 2 about his new judging role on Britain's Got Talent.

On The Chris Evans Breakfast Show he described how Simon Cowell had "wooed" him for the job.

Britain's Got Talent: what will Michael McIntyre add...

Michael McIntyre and The Hoff are replacing Piers Morgan on the Britain's Got Talent judging panel. Which in one way is excellent news ...

Michael McIntyre: I'm not going to crack America

"I'm not going to crack America. I'm staying, sorry. It's taken me long enough to sort things out here and I don't want to start again somewhere else."

Michael McIntyre: Hello Wembley!, BBC One, preview

Michael Hogan's analyses the appeal of stand-up comedian Michael McIntyre.

Glaswegian comedian Frankie Boyle's controversial interjections on Mock The Week turned that show into must-see TV for many, and his loss made the show immediately less infamous. There's certainly a place for Boyle's brand of "shock comedy" on network television, particularly in a landscape currently dominated by family-friendly comics like Michael McIntyre, Rhod Gilbert and John Bishop. Sadly, Frankie Boyle's Tramadol Nights is a horrendous mess, on the evidence of its first episode.

It uses a tried-and-trusted format: stand-up comedy interspersed with sketches. What's unfortunate is that (a) Boyle's stand-up routines are taken directly from his recent tour, meaning many fans will have heard the jokes before, and (b) the sketches were idiotic attempts at shocking people that dragged on past their natural end points. The first sketch, running with the idea that David Hasselhoff's character in Knight Rider was mentally ill, was perhaps the worst offender - a target 25 years out of date, a stupid idea you'd expect from a schoolboy, producing a sketch that seemed to last forever. Other sketches included candid camera spoof "Hide Me, I've Killed A Kid", an animated "George Michael's Highway Code" (topical?) and a bizarre parody of The Green Mile where the black character's supernatural power came from... raping people?

Tramadol Nights was objectionable in a way it wasn't aiming for; a show with zero intelligence behind it. I could scarcely believe Frankie Boyle's the bearded ringmaster of this tripe, as the prospect of a Channel 4 comedy from him was a delicious prospect up until last night. Too much of its sketches were pale excuses for Boyle to visually enact jokes that work better in the minds of an audience being told them verbally. At the very least, someone should have reminded Boyle that a sketch works best if it's less than two-minutes long, not twice that.

The sole positive: you don't need to buy Frankie Boyle's DVD as a stocking filler this Christmas, because it seems likely all of its material will be served up here each week.

Michael McIntyre: 'Some critics annoy me'

Michael McIntyre has admitted that he is annoyed by some critics of his work.