Affable Rob Brydon's light-hearted chat show is pleasant enough but has little to distinguish it from others of its kind. Tonight he's joined by Barbara Windsor who shares a delightful Amy Winehouse anecdote and has fun sending-up her EastEnders alias Peggy Mitchell's banshee-like behaviour. Chef Heston Blumenthal also drops by to discuss barbecuing etiquette and sleek doo-wop band The Overtones provide the music.

In a different setting, it's easy to imagine Rob Brydon being persuasive, teasing the most difficult and troubling of secrets away from celeb bosoms.

A lively half-hour chat show is not the place for that, however. So as it returns for a third series, Rob contents himself with comedy talk from Michael McIntyre and festival talk with Alex James, who's about to run a food and music event with Jamie Oliver on his Oxfordshire estate. Lovers of chat-show bingo should fill their game cards with the words "Blur", "farm" and "cheese".

Music comes from the racing car-loving Scottish singer Amy Macdonald.

The Rob Brydon Show review - Episode 3.1

Real, real credit to Rob Brydon for managing to inject all the humour he could into what - if it had been left to Alex James - would have been a very dull and boring interview.

Rob Brydon's chat show - an engaging mixture of the comfy and the surreal - returns for a third series. Whether Brydon has been persuaded to part with the bright brown shoes he inexplicably wears with his smart blue suit remains to be seen. His guests include comedian Michael McIntyre, and cheese-making Telegraph columnist and Blur bassist, Alex James, with Scottish singer Amy MacDonald performing her new single.

Rob Brydon interview

Welsh funnyman Rob Brydon talks to TV Times magazine about proving himself as a serious actor in BBC2's The Best of Men, the return of his chat show, his fear of failure and why family will always come first...

Rob Brydon returning for third series

The Rob Brydon Show is returning for a third series on BBC2 this summer.

Another funny, easy half hour from Brydon, who right from the off is getting laughs from his studio audience - in the case of one man in the front row, so many that "he looks like he's auditioning for a Beach Boys tribute act". And it's true, he does. There's also a woman in the audience who claims Brydon brought a very sweet present to her 18th birthday party in Porthcawl - although by the looks of it, the host has no recollection of this.

The main event is an enjoyable chat with Frank Skinner: both comics are Elvis fans and combine for a bizarre duet on one of his very cheesiest numbers, Don't Cry Daddy. But the "real" music comes from hot Manchester duo Hurts. Their romantic synth-pop will whisk you back to the 1980s and start heated arguments over who they resemble most - Ultravox, Heaven 17 or Pet Shop Boys. And that's just on one song.

Another fun show from the affable Mr Brydon tonight, with music from Will Young, stand up from Phil Wang (a self-proclaimed fat Chinese man who looks like Michael 'wobbly head' McIntyre) and star presence from Dame Edna Everage.

She's "the greatest woman that's ever lived", says Rob - do you want to tell him, or shall I?

Edna might not live up to Rob's statement, but she makes for bloomin' good telly and you have to keep reminding yourself whose show it is.

It's the audience that has the best laughs, including one real-life Gil Grissom who got locked in with some stiffs and a woman who found her dream man by the side of a road.

Back to our guests, and Will makes the mistake of trying to outdo a ­comedian. As Dame Edna eyes her fists, he should well look nervous - Dragons' Den Hilary Devey's huge rings are catching on.

Tonight's main guest ensures this episode won't be quite like any other: it's Dame Edna Everage! Yes, from the 1980s. But the old girl still knows how to derail a chat show, and within minutes she's taken over, the peerless timing of her put-downs more than compensating for their familiarity. Brydon laughs helplessly, as will you.

Will Young is in the studio, too, and proves to be a good foil for Edna, although their duet on Something Stupid by Frank and Nancy Sinatra is rather hampered by Edna visibly not recalling the song. Young returns later to perform his new single Jealousy, a record we are all destined not to recall.

When Rob Brydon launched this chat show last year, he said he was interested only in interviewing guests whose work he respected. That may sound like the kind of hot air any obsequious chat show host would spout, but in Brydon's case it may actually be true: among his guests in his two series to date have been Bruce Forsyth, Tom Jones, Ronnie Corbett and Terry Wogan, all of whom Brydon is well known to admire. Tonight's guest is another lifelong favourite of Brydon's, and indeed of most people in Britain who enjoy comedy: the majestic Dame Edna Everage, who's still going strong at... well, it wouldn't do to mention a lady's age, now, would it? There will also be a song from Will Young, and some stand-up from the startlingly young Phil Wang. We're sure Dame Edna will have the good taste not to draw attention to that surname.