Spitting Image victims on being lampooned

As the satirical puppets return, Edwina Currie, Neil Kinnock and Ken Livingstone discuss their portrayal in the original.

Kinnock Spitting Image puppets up for sale

The Spitting Image puppets of former Labour leader Neil Kinnock and his wife Glenys are going up for auction.

Exclusive clip from The Trip to Italy DVD

Need an extra helping of Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon's brilliantly tasty gastronomic tour of Italy? Then wait no longer. The DVD of their latest series, The Trip To Italy, is out next Monday, but just to whet your appetite here is one of the previously unseen extras from it in which affable but-not-quite-as-affable as his TV persona Rob Brydon persuades Steve Coogan to do an impression of former Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock as they cruise through Tuscany.

Radio Times review

The comic riffs and bickering are lower-key this week. We start with Rob Brydon waking up in bed next to the blonde girl from the last episode, the one on the yacht, and we gather from the expletives he's not best pleased with himself. Perhaps that helps things take a mournful turn, as he and travelling companion Steve Coogan reflect on Shelley's funeral pyre and death generally.

In one of his extended flights of fancy, Rob imagines Steve on his deathbed, so incapacitated he can't even grope his attractive nurse. As if to retaliate (and there's a lot of that) Steve later reflects on his "semi-justified reputation for being something of a lothario".

But over and above the nicely observed riffs on ageing and celebrity there are, of course, the impressions: this week Steve reads the guide book as first James Mason and then, brilliantly, Neil Kinnock. Plus, "Roger Moore sings the very best of Alanis Morissette".

Neil Kinnock makes cameo appearance in Stella

Neil Kinnock films a cameo in Ruth Jones' sitcom Stella - and is revealed as an unlikely crush for the downtrodden housewife.

Ruth Jones's Welsh sitcom ambles on pleasantly but uneventfully in this third episode. The death of a local rugby legend promises to revive ailing fortunes when a lavish funeral is planned. Most of the humour revolves around the fact that his name was 'Dick', an innuendo that's repeated way too many times even before guest star Neil Kinnock gets saddled with it during his speech (his performance is fine, mind you - they have the sense to put him behind a lectern where he's at home). Eamonn Holmes also appears in a tailor-made Sky News broadcast, but other than that this is decidedly unremarkable and never hilarious. Still, props for having a hot younger guy, Sean (Kenny Doughty) mooning after Jones's mumsy character, rather than the other way around.

Under the guidance of Gavin & Stacey's co-writer Ruth Jones, who also stars, comedy drama Stella has fast found its mark. Quick-witted, understated and charming, the second episode finds forthysomething single mother Stella (Jones) juggling the upcoming marriage of her teenage daughter Emma (Catrin Stewart) and the imminent release of her son from jail. But first thereis the death of hometown Welsh legend "Dick the Kick", and the town is determined to give him a proper send off (cue an appearance by Neil Kinnock).