The Gentlemen review

Everything you want from a Guy Ritchie caper - lock, stock and barrel.

'I don't like arrogance': Ray Winstone on healing Guy Ritchie rift and acting with Jack Nicholson

Ray Winstone talks about his new comedy crime series, The Gentlemen.

The Queen's Corgi review: palace pooch in the doghouse

Jack Whitehall voices a disgraced doggie who ends up joining a canine fight club in this mirthless animated caper.

In The Legend of Barney Thomson a mild-mannered and boring Glasgow barber, a scissors-wielding Barney accidentally kills his boss Charlie (Brian Pettifer) in an argument after Barney is sacked.

Terrified that his sacking will be considered a motive for murder, Barney decides to dispose of the body, and hope that Charlie's disappearance will be linked to the ongoing serial killings plaguing Glasgow.

Adapted from Douglas Lindsay's novel The Long Midnight of Barney Thompson, this comedy is chock-a-block with twists and turns, and boasts a superb cast -- Ray Winstone plays a fish-out-of-water Cockney copper convinced of Barney's guilt, Emma Thompson has a whale of a time playing Barney's hard-drinking harridan of a mother, while Tom Courtenay's turn as the least effective Chief Superintendent of all time is a joy.

Throw in Carlyle's own terrific performance as the harried Barney, and The Legend of Barney Thompson should be an instant comic classic, but somehow the individual elements, all excellent in their own right, fail to gel.

It's difficult to work out why, because Carlyle keeps things moving along at a fast clip and the comic moments are crisply timed.

The Legend of Barney Thompson is a frequently funny but ultimately dissatisfying black comedy.

The Legend of Barney Thomson review

Ray Winstone stars in Robert Carlyle's capable directorial debut that has some smart touches and a scene-stealing Emma Thompson.

Radio Times review

"Do you touch the frogs?" It's the kind of question you'd only hear in a David Lynch film or an episode of Would I Lie to You? Here, team captain David Mitchell dons a helmet with a light on it that he maintains is his "frog-lamp" for wearing on nocturnal trips to check on the frogs at the bottom of his garden. If that strikes you as a rattlingly daft claim, you're in good company, but stranger things have been posited on this show and proved true. At the bottom of Ray Winstone's garden, meanwhile, he wants us to believe he has a scale model of Stonehenge. A Winstonehenge, if you will.

Not every Christmas special needs a change of scene. Would I Lie To You? at Christmas was much like any other episode of the show, save for a few snowflake decorations, yet it still felt festive. It's at Christmas that this cosy parlour game comes into its own. Something else that hadn't changed was the gender imbalance. It's not unusual for a panel show, of course, but the fact that WILTY? can muster only one woman out of seven participants is still a shocker.

Judged by any other standard, however, this was a strong line-up. On Lee Mack's team, the lone woman, Countdown's co-presenter Rachel Riley, got in a good yarn about a cake-baking super-fan and David Mitchell's team, featuring actor Ray Winstone and The Last Leg's Josh Widdicombe, was balanced in other ways. "It looks like Ray's on charge for something, Dave is his flustered barrister and Josh is the child they're fighting for custody over," commented host Rob Brydon.

Winstone proved himself a formidable fibber, but the most spurious story of all came from Lee Mack: "I can write so well with my foot that to save time writing Christmas cards I simultaneously write one card with my hand and one card with my foot." Naturally, a demonstration was in order.

Don't tell Wossy (or Graham Norton, for that matter), but chat shows make the perfect accompaniment to late-night wrapping. If only this show aired before Christmas Day, then you could have watched the guests you like, and concentrated on the tricky shapes during the ones you don't.

Tonight's guests are John Bishop, whose autobiography you might have been wrapping, Jamie Oliver, whose gravy you might currently be digesting, and Ray Winstone, whose appearance in Sky's family drama Moonfleet you may squint at tonight, wondering why he's not swearing while hitting someone in the face.

Sir David Attenborough completes the Christmas line-up, and hopefully he'll be asked about his most offbeat hit, Tweet of the Day, which over Christmas will briefly flood Radio 4's Today Programme with glorious birdsong.

Ray Winstone divides Have I Got News For You fans

Actor Ray Winstone has become the latest big name to take the guest host slot on Have I Got News For You - but not everyone was impressed with his performance.