Stephen Fry

The good news is that this ripper spoof of political PR is back on radio after its successful foray into television. The bad news is that this is the last time Mark Tavener's tales will grace radio. But then, that's what successful transitions to TV do for you. As before, Stephen Fry is Charles Prentice, a man so low he has to reach up to tickle a snake's belly, and John Bird (above, with Fry) is Martin McCabe, a representative of old-school PR, but no less venal for that. It is a testament to the power of spin that Prentice and McCabe can do the same job for new Labour as they did for the Tories - although they do feel uncomfortable about it.

Other than that it's good to note that someone at the Beeb also feels that February is the worst month of the year - the fag end of winter but still too far from spring - and that we need some special laughs to get through it. Thus the return of Absolute Power (February 5, 6.30pm). This Stephen Fry/John Bird dissection of the dark arts of PR has made a successful transition to TV, with the result that this, the third series on radio, will be the last, so cherish it.

QI (BBC2), the quiz in which Stephen Fry presides benignly over a Beano-like collection of comics [...] What is funny is that my preview tape proved that the programme was originally intended to go out on Boxing Day. Fry's preamble was consequently stuffed with topical rib ticklers, each one hand-crafted by the master, about boxing matches and battling bruisers and the Feast of Stephen. "This day is my day and you are all scum." I would have loved to be there when he was informed that it was going out on Christmas Eve.

There are few pleasures on TV to equal QI (BBC2), in which Stephen Fry pours erudition liberally over insubordinate comics like honey on waffles. It is pure tmesis which, he explained, was the splitting of a word to include another, as in abso-blooming-lutely wonderful.

QI (BBC2) was like finding caviar on the menu in the canteen. [...] QI is the sort of quiz, more common on radio, where it is better to be bright than right. The beauty of television is that you can watch Hugh Laurie]'s expression as Stephen Fry explains that the forbidden fruit is believed to be a banana.

Any ad-libbed, improvised show requires a special skill from the players, and in a professional sense they are living dangerously. There was an occasion in Just a Minute when the subject was snapshots. Kenneth Williams was unhappy about one of my decisions, which went against him on this subject, and he began to harass me. Peter Jones and Derek Nimmo joined in, which added to the pressure. In an effort to bring them to order, I said: "I'm sorry Kenneth, you were deviating from snapshots, you were well away from snapshots. It is with Peter, snopshots, er snipshots, er snopshits . . . snop . . . snaps." The audience roared with laughter. I added: "I'm not going to repeat the subject. I think you know it . . . and I think I may have finished my career in radio."

QI, however much it tries to be subtly different, is part of a glorious tradition. When radio first presented panel shows they cast them from those with a proven intellectual background. This mold was broken in the early 1960s, when Jimmy Edwards devised a programme for the Home Service, with himself as chairman, called Does the Team Think?. The panellists were all well-known comedians, Tommy Trinder, Cyril Fletcher and others, who proved that comics were just as intelligent as academics, and usually much funnier.

QI is a direct descendant. And when you have Stephen Fry, and contestants such as Alan Davies, Hugh Laurie and Danny Baker, and a producer of the calibre of John Lloyd, the BBC must be on to a winner.

Spin comedy makes screen switch

BBC Radio 4 comedy Absolute Power, which stars Stephen Fry and John Bird as machiavellian spin doctors, is making the switch to BBC2.

Mark Tavener, having killed off his booze-sodden BBC crime correspondent George Cragge, now concentrates on Charles Prentiss and Martin McCabe, minor characters in his comedy-thriller cycle In The Red. They have axed the Beeb's management so successfully that they now find themselves jobless and setting up as spin doctors. Absolute Power (11.30am, Radio 4) gives Stephen Fry and John Bird one or two nice one-liners - but nowhere near enough to sustain 30 minutes.

The start of A Bit Of Fry And Laurie (BBC1) a couple of weeks ago was so self-absorbed, so steadily unfunny, that, as Bertie Wooster used to say, only the fact that I couldn't think of anything refrained me from saying something pretty stinging. Frankly, I thought it might be me. Perhaps, like a vulture with a heavy head cold, I couldn't distinguish between a smash hit and a nasty accident. Circumstances were guaranteed this week's show a rating which should dinge the feeling. Luckily, it is better. Or my head cold is.

I can't but feel that Fry is wrong for Jeeves. Too young for one thing but he will still be wrong when he is too old. However, Fry and Laurie are probably indissoluble like Damon and Pythias or Crosse & Blackwell.