The Windsors, Channel 4, review

There's some mildly subversive satire in there if you look hard enough.

Review: The Windsors

There are some neat, if not side-splitting, lines and enjoyably daft premises, but the show never really takes off. A lot of the scenes have a touch of the Spitting Image about them for sure - but what works as sketch doesn't necessarily sustain for a full narrative.

Preview: The Windsors

The Windsors isn't going to win any awards for subtlety and the writers certainly aren't going to win any knighthoods, but if you like seeing royal poshos royally sent up this should put a smile on your face.

Radio Times review

Whatever horrors the world has endured over the past 12 months - war, pestilence, terrorism and Piers Morgan's new presenting gig on Good Morning Britain (only kidding, Piers), then we can always be sure of some traditional comforts. One is that Charlie Brooker and friends will extract some comic mileage in his now-traditional end-of-year round-up.

Joined by contributors Doug Stanhope, Morgana Robinson (complete with her extraordinary Russell Brand impersonation) and Diane Morgan as the fabulously vacuous pundit Philomena Cunk, laughter appears guaranteed. Page Three and Cecil the Lion may all have died this year, but smart, sassy satire is alive and well on BBC Two.

Radio Times review

Vic, Bob and Beef are entering a danceathon in Julie's bistro. They've got their killer moves worked out. There's the one where Vic pretends to be Richard III extracting sardines from a pantry, and the one where Bob throws wrens towards Saturn. But then Vic and Beef set about breaking each other's legs...

The plot doesn't matter, of course. Slightly more structured as Fools now is - Bob goes to the bistro "to move the story on" - we're here to be sprayed with a thousand stupid ideas. Fine bits of comic business include Vic's impossible crotch-grabbing arm, and Julie (Morgana Robinson) claiming to have done the choreography for Ross Kemp's Gangs of Namibia.

Vic and Bob return, with Bob's Nordic son Erik gearing up for a blind date. He's not keen but, after some cajoling from Vic, agrees. Meanwhile, Beef (Matt Berry) joins Vic and Bob in a band that will celebrate the opening week of Julie's bistro, brandishing a keytar. Sadly, considering the hoo-hah over whether it might or might not get a second series, things in the house don't seem anywhere near as sharp as series one - except for Morgana Robinson's bonkers Julie, of course, who is all swivel-eyed brilliance.