Richard Briers is battling chronic lung disease

Richard Briers is battling emphysema after smoking '500,000 cigarettes'.

Up-and-coming TV presenter Michael Grade explains the evolution of a peculiar British cultural institution, in a lightly festive hour that begins with our host in full make-up, wig and tent-like dress. We learn how 18th-century impresario John Rich discovered harlequin shows were ten times more lucrative than Shakespeare; then how the specifics of a man delivering double entendres as a deliberately unconvincing woman gradually fell into place.

Grade chats with Gyles Brandreth, Richard Briers and Matthew Kelly about the demands of damehood. But the star of the show is Berwick Kaler, writer, director and dame of York's famous panto. The future of the art form looks safe with him.

Oh yes it is! It's a rave review of the pantomime dame, presented, somewhat bizarrely, by former BBC1 controller Michael Grade. Going back to the 18th century for the birth of this very British tradition, this compendium of men donning frocks features insights from veterans such as Richard Briers and Matthew Kelly.

They are the "most gregarious, garrulous, gorgeous creatures in the history of British theatre", says Michael Grade of the pantomime dame as he takes a tour through the character's history on stage. "It all depends on the eyes and knees," says one observer, of someone who can be "motherly, vain, outrageous and anarchic". Grade looks back to the pantomime productions of the 19th century and to vintage performances by Terry Scott and Arthur Askey. In the company of Richard Briers and Berwick Kaler, the latter having played the part for 30 years at York's Theatre Royal, Grade discovers why the dame has proved so popular.

Penelope Wilton on working with Richard Briers

Penelope Wilton recalls filming Ever Decreasing Circles with Richard Briers in 1987.

A look at the Silver Jubilee Good Life performance

At the conclusion of the myriad of events surrounding the recent Queen's Diamond Jubilee celebration, I started thinking back to the Silver Jubilee in 1977 when Her Majesty and Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, attended a taping of an episode of The Good Life (Good Neighbors in the States), starring Richard Briers, Felicity Kendal, Penelope Keith and Paul Eddington.

Culture clinic: Richard Briers

Actor Richard Briers submits to a little light therapy.

First of a pair of charming plays (there's another tomorrow) by Michael Chaplin about William (Richard Briers) and Sandy (Stanley Baxter), two residents at the Old Beeches retirement home for theatricals who, when the call comes, can set their differences aside and solve the occasional mystery. Today's involves Charlie (Barry Cryer), an elderly comic. His joke book goes missing and, with it, quite a lot of money. But it's a delicate situation, one that will soon call for all the tact that our duo of tetchy amateur sleuths can muster.

The comic talents of Richard Briers

'I was the prissy boy destined to play the silly ass,' says the comic genius.

Alf is an elderly gentleman and he's getting very confused. He can hear voices in his head and one of them is his own from the days when he was married. This play by Ed Harris is billed as a tender comedy and there are moments when Alf's confusion becomes gently amusing. But the overall feeling is one of sadness and loss. Alf is grieving fomr his wife, but also mourning the troubled state of their marriage and the onset of dementia. He describes the attack upon his memory as like that of an imperial army, with different countries falling every day. Richard Briers and Rory Kinnear play Alf the older and younger with understated directness and genuine empathy. A brilliant drama.