Stewart Lee: Unreliable Narrator review

To research this Radio 4 essay about the role of the unreliable narrator, Stewart Lee spent almost three weeks with the Inrravat people of northern Canada, who believe in a trickster god whose stories cannot be trusted. What did he learn about this ancient culture? Well, almost nothing in a literal sense as all their stories - as you might expect - are based on lies and exaggeration.

Terry Christian the stand-up

Terry Christian isn't the first person I would think of when it comes to being a natural stand-up comic. ... However, Naked Confessions of a Recovering Catholic is not only very funny, brilliantly observational and an overdue pop at the absurdities of the Roman Catholic Church, Christian himself is a natural and fantastically self-deprecating stand-up.

I can understand the appeal of shows such as Grumpy Old Men and Grumpy Old Women because the sight of elderly curmudgeons railing against a world they no longer understand is innately amusing. But what is the point of The Grumpy Guide to the Eighties? The eighties have gone, never to trouble anyone again. It's like complaining about the Jurassic era.

The reason, of course is that programmes like this are cheap to make and can be cobbled together with the minimum of fuss, particularly if you are lazy and go after easy targets - mullet hairstyles? Check. Rubik's Cubes? Check. Bucks Fizz? Check.

Quite apart from the inherent idiocy of mocking past fashions - as I remember, we couldn't get out of the seventies quick enough - or lambasting pop music for being shallow, the contributors to this Grumpy Guide struck me as particularly obnoxious.

While Fiona Allen waxed lyrical from her kitchen, a hideous study in Dayglo spew leered over her shoulder from the wall behind, automatically disqualifying her as an arbiter of taste in any decade. Sadly, I can't identify the charmless American oaf with a goatee beard who shared reminiscences upon mugging local yuppies, otherwise you would know to avoid him. And as for Terry Christian slagging off the eighties, isn't that like Hitler denouncing the Third Reich.

Recently my son came up to my office with a laptop to show me a clip from what he described as "the world's funniest show". He was referring to Would I Lie to You?. This may or may not surprise you, depending on your understanding of what the average 11-year-old boy finds funny.

Having watched last night's instalment, my own professional opinion (I was recently criticised for having no TV-reviewing qualifications, but I have since started a night course) is that Would I Lie to You? is some way off being the world's funniest show, but is still pretty funny. How the game works is not important. It's been a long time since the rules of any panel show mattered, because there isn't anything at stake - not even pride. This one is basically just an opportunity for comedians to insult each other.

And that's a pretty reliable formula, because even if you don't like a particular comedian (lots of people don't like Jimmy Carr, for example), you'll enjoy the bits where everyone takes the piss out of him. Last night's panel consisted of four funny guys and Terry Christian. And Jamelia, who also isn't funny, except in the sense that she's funnier than Terry Christian. But we can all put that on our CVs.

The highlight for me was the deeply improbable claim that Marcus Brigstocke was once a podium dancer at the Ministry of Sound, during weeks off from his other job working on an oil rig. This turns out to be completely true. "So Flashdance is actually based on your life," said Jimmy Carr. I think that's funny. Sue me.

The best bit this week is David Mitchell's sort-of impression of Jodie Marsh (she's a "glamour model", the one who isn't Jordan). Of course Mitchell is ill-equipped even to approximate Ms Marsh's two famously overblown assets, but he does a very decent career precis of the big-bosomed one's raison d'etre, albeit delivered in his exasperated A-level history teacher's voice. It's pretty much down to captains Mitchell and Lee Mack to keep things going, with some lacklustre guests. Jimmy Carr is impossible to like; Terry Christian is clearly baffled and well aware that he's out of his depth, to the point that you might end up feeling sorry for him; and singer Jamelia yet again inexplicably turns up on a TV panel show. Host Rob Brydon helps the show bounce along as he referees the arguments and interrogations: was Christian interrogated by police hunting a jewel thief? And did comedian Marcus Brigstocke work as a podium dancer?