TV review: The Revolution Will Be Televised

These two pranksters even tried to get Tony Blair sainted. What cojones!

Video: Stephen Mangan on emotions and giving birth

Actor Stephen Mangan, who has portrayed Tony Blair and currently plays a pregnant man on the London stage, spoke of emotions in the week when David Cameron's temper and the the "feisty form" of Conservative MP Ann Marie Morris were in the news.

Michael Portillo recalled losing his seat at Westminster - and also claimed there were "extensive similarities" between Andy Murray and Gordon Brown - as he debated political image and emotions with Andrew Neil and Alan Johnson.

The interview ends with the actor talking of his hopes for a new series of Episodes - in which he stars with Matt LeBlanc and Tamsin Greig.

Capaldi: 'Tucker wasn't based on Alastair Campbell'

With his profane and aggressive manner, it had widely been assumed that Alastair Campbell was the inspiration for The Thick Of It's fearsome spin doctor Malcolm Tucker. However, Peter Capaldi has disclosed that his foul mouthed character was not based on former Prime Minister Tony Blair's director of communications at all.

Ian Hislop wants Tony Blair to be on HIGNFY

Ian Hislop wants Tony Blair to appear on Have I Got News For You - saying he would make a "terrific" guest.

Reality and satire get even closer in this latest offering from Gervais and Merchant. In this supposed documentary series, we follow actor Warwick Davis, "the UK's go-to dwarf". Davis plays himself as a cross between David Brent and Tony Blair, a man with a delusional sense of his own importance, who sees himself as a valued character player, and campaigner ("like Martin Luther King") but who sees others of his stature as slightly pitiable. Liam Neeson guests, expressing a wish to debut his spectacularly unfunny standup comedy.

The Comic Strip gang, creators of previous full-length satirical fantasies deploying prodigies of mimetic skill to recreate erstwhile Britain through parody of its movies and television, set out to do so again with "The Hunt for Tony Blair" (Channel 4). Stand by for a sardonic take-down.

Some of The Comic Strip's catalogue is very good. They did a version of the Arthur Scargill story as it would have looked if Hollywood had taken it over and cast Al Pacino in the lead. I remember laughing at that. They did a version of The Professionals in which the pair of style-free heroes ran around the entire time with their lips pursed. It was called "The Bullshitters". I remember laughing very hard at that.

But I can already remember not laughing at "The Hunt for Tony Blair" even once. It made all the standard references to Blair the war criminal as if that was enough. Meanwhile it recreated The 39 Steps and a whole era of British film in which Britain's short list of stars struggled to be glamorous. Tony Blair, in fact, looked a bit like John Gregson, remembered by dozens of people even today.

But even as you admired the fidelity of the stylistics, the show refused to fizz. Somewhere in the middle there was a little giggle about Blair being Mrs Thatcher's lover, which gave Jennifer Saunders the chance to enact scenes from Sunset Boulevard: scarcely a British movie, one would have thought. Around that shaky fulcrum, deserts of unfunniness stretched far away.

You can't, however, blame Jennifer Saunders for grabbing any chance going to climb into period threads. Women's frocks were just so interesting, in the days when they were the top layer of a whole support system.

The Hunt For Tony Blair review

Personally speaking, if it was not for the fact that some of the 'old guard' was going to be in this programme, I do not think that I would have enjoyed it as much.

The Hunt For Tony Blair review

Bush is a hoodlum, Maggie a Norma Desmond diva - and Blair and Mandelson a pitch-perfect joy.

The Hunt for Tony Blair was bonkers but brilliant

"The Hunt for Tony Blair" saw comedy veterans from The Comic Strip join forces with Stephen Mangan for this wacky, tacky and very funny offering.

The Hunt for Tony Blair, review

While they varied in quality, a new Comic Strip film was always an event back in the day - which makes it particularly sad that their latest outing is so irrelevant and lacking in bite. Maybe it's time the Comic Strip was left to rest in peace.