Like many, it took me a while to get into The Mighty Boosh, but now I’m one of those people that gets into tetchy arguments while defending it against charges of gross hipsterism. So as a committed fan, I was fascinated to see what Noel Fielding’s solo project, Channel 4′s Luxury Comedy, would be like…

But is it art?

Despite my love for Noel’s work with Julian Barratt, I have to say I approached his new sketch show with a little trepidation. What really grabbed me about the Boosh wasn’t the surreal characters and lo-fi, hand-made visuals, it was just Noel and Julian sat on a bench bickering like an old married couple. I embraced the oddness, but it was the traditional double-act stuff that grounded the show.

From the publicity, though, Noel Fielding’s Luxury Comedy appeared to be 100% surreal characters and lo-fi, hand-made visuals. They were always Noel’s domain — he’s had several art exhibitions around London — and without his verbal sparring partner, it seemed that ‘grounding the show’ was about as far from his mind as observational skits about aeroplane food.

After the first episode, I was left feeling a little flat. I’d chuckled, and the show did indeed look great thanks to the fantastic hand-painted sets and costumes, but the sketches didn’t seem to hang together particularly well, and I didn’t feel I’d quite got a handle on what Noel was trying to achieve yet.

Thank goodness I followed my own advice and gave a new comedy series a second chance then, as the second episode was a whole lot more enjoyable. Themed around art — with appearances from Andy Warhol and discussions about whether dressing up as a ‘fireman baby’ is a concept or a joke — the second episode had a satisfying cohesion that was lacking from the first. Is Noel Fielding’s Luxury Comedy laugh out loud funny? No. Is it interesting, cleverer than it likes to make out and, most importantly, going somewhere? Looks that way…

Holiday from hell

Sky One has scored a few hits in both drama and comedy recently, but perhaps top of the pile is Mad Dogs – and the second mini-series has proved just as much fun as the first. With a central cast that comprises Philip Glenister, John Simm, Marc Warren and Max Beesley, it would have had to be a pretty woeful script for it to be a total disaster, but in fact these great actors get to deliver some witty and believable dialogue and, best of all, it is immaculately, classily directed.

In the first series, this set of middle-aged-men-with-baggage found themselves in receipt of drug money and having shot a cop while on holiday in Majorca. And in this series, things have got worse. They’ve been shot at, almost blown up, had a voodoo curse put on them and threatened with execution, and all the while they snipe at each other, look after their own interests and have moments of selfless camaraderie. Massively entertaining, and — luckily for us — not over yet: Mad Dogs 3 is being filmed right now.

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This week I “marvelled at the majesty of the night sky” with Dr Brian Cox, finally got the bug for The Office: An American Workplace, and learned all about generating ad revenue with comedy web series Partners in Pretension. Busy week…

Spacewatch

Following the success of last year’s Stargazing Live mini-series, I don’t think there was ever any doubt that it’d return, and — understandably and correctly — the producers have seen fit to keep the format pretty much identical. Dr Brian Cox and Dara O Briain led the way once again, and with its mix of in-studio (or in-space-telescope in this case) hosts, presenters out in the field, expert interviews and dodgy live-feeds, the show certainly has a touch of the Springwatches about it. An undeniably Good Thing.

So what did I learn? Well there were some lovely “beginner’s guide” packages from Dr Cox — even in the depths of winter he headed to the beach to get his trusty sand-scraping stick out and explain the movements of the tides — and I have to say it had never really struck me  that you see the moon “upside down” in the southern hemisphere… I should probably have known that one, though.

But for all of this interstellar information, live images of the Andromeda galaxy, mind-blowing distances and even the discovery of a new planet, the most brilliant moment of the three live shows came within the first half-hour, when Brian and Dara spoke to Captain Eugene Cernan, the last man to walk on the Moon. He was everything you want an astronaut to be — inspiring, humble, and eloquent — and best of all, he referred to the Moon as a ‘planet’, adding “I call the Moon a planet, sometimes.” You’ve been there, mate, call it whatever you like.

Late to the Office party

The Office: An American Workplace (as we Brits alone call it) has been around since 2005, but somehow it has taken me until now to get around to actually sitting down and watching a few episodes properly. These episodes are like 22 minutes long, by the way; you’d have thought I’d have found time in the intervening seven years to catch one or two.

But now that I have finally got around to it I am, rather inevitably, hooked. It’s got such heart, the performances are insanely good, there are a handful of laugh-out-loud lines every episode…  But you guys already knew all this, right? Luckily, I’ve now got over 100 episodes to go back and enjoy. Can’t wait.

Partners in Pretension

Having not even found time in my busy schedule for one of the biggest US comedies of the past decade, you’d think I would avoid adding web-only series to my long To Watch list. But when info about Partners in Pretension dropped into the Dork Adore post box, I thought I’d give it a whirl — after all, how often do you get contacted about a comedy show with ‘it’s about online ad revenue!’ as a selling point? They know their market, clearly.

The show stars Fernando Noor and Tristan Scott-Behrends as a couple of highly pretentious college graduates looking to make a few dollars in this gloomy economic climate by raising money off the back of ‘how to’ videos that they post online. There are some nice lines, Scott-Behrends particularly is a cool performer and it looks good – but perhaps the most interesting thing about the show is that it exists at all. It may not change the face of comedy, but they’re clearly a talented team and, this being 2012, they’ve been able to make it, and get an audience online. Imagine the vast wealth of great stuff there must be out there… if only we had the time.

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These last couple of weeks have been a real treat, telly-wise. Nick has already taken us through the first episode of Sherlock 2.0 (here), so let’s now celebrate a few other gems: BBC One’s latest flagship nature programme, Earthflight, the excellent adaptation of Dickens’s Great Expectations, and the very funny Horrible Histories Prom.

On the wings of a dove (and snow goose, and pelican, and…)

There are some shows which have clearly been made with HD in mind and Earthflight is, I’d suggest, certainly one of them. This new series from Aunty Beeb — and narrated by the fabulous David Tennant —  follows a bird migration across a different continent in each episode, and with North America and Africa aired so far, I’m already pretty confident in saying there’s unlikely to be a better nature programme on this year.

As with all great nature programmes, the main joy of this series is that you get to see behaviour that you never knew existed. The focus is, of course, on birds, but following a migration means we’re given their unique view of other animals thanks to some hugely impressive photography and camera-work. There’s no “making of” feature at the end of the programme, but there’s clearly been a microlight used along the way, and some cameras actually strapped to the birds themselves too — and this all makes for some pretty astonishing footage.

In the first two episodes we’ve seen a baboon hunt down a flamingo, grabbing it out of mid-air as it tries to fly away; swallows swooping to a take a drink of water without breaking their flight and this, undoubtedly the moment of the series so far, in which we see rays jumping out of the water and flapping their “wings” as if trying to fly:

Expectations met?

Despite having taken a specific Charles Dickens module during my English degree, it appears I was the only person to sit down to watch the BBC’s new adaptation of Great Expectations without knowing exactly how the story was going to play out. (But you can ask me anything on the all-too ignored Dombey and Son…) This ignorance probably put me at an advantage, but it seems that, a minor “style over substance” backlash aside,  even those more in the know than me still found plenty to enjoy.

This production certainly did have a lot of style — Miss Havisham’s crumbling Satis House in particular was a triumph in design and atmosphere, and the opening scenes out in the Fens were beautifully shot — but there was more to it than looks.Yes, Pip may have been impossibly pretty, but Douglas Booth can act too, and the kid playing his younger incarnation, Oscar Kennedy was superb. Plus, Gillian Anderson was typically great as an ethereal Miss Havisham, and her death scene was impressively handled.

There are always going to be complaints when elements of a much-loved novel are left out, but I thought that this was a neat and well-paced, enjoyable adaptation with a top-notch cast. Sheer class, all in all.

“Duchesses, actresses, the great loves of my life…”

It has been on before, but the New Year showing of the Horrible Histories Prom gave me my first opportunity to watch it, and it was genuinely one of the most entertaining 90 minutes of TV I’ve seen in ages. The songs are catchy and informative, and the little sketches written and performed especially for this one-off event were wonderful. The whole thing was a proper joy from start to finish, in fact.

I could pick any number of highlights, then — Mathew Baynton‘s (Spy) Charles II rap is hilarious; the Viking soft-rock anthem Literally blessed with a brilliant central idea — but the stand-out performance for me came from the very talented Jim Howick as George IV, forced to wait and wait for his time to shine:

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It’s Boxing Day, and that means we’re just about halfway through the Radio Times double issue – a good time, then, to take a look back over What We’ve Been Watching during this first Christmas week…

Bleak Odd Shop of Stuff

One of the first proper Christmas specials to be shown this year was Bleak Old Shop Of Stuff back on Monday 19th December – a television “reimagining” of writer Mark Evans‘s BBC Radio 4 comedy series Bleak Expectations. Despite being totally up my street, I’ve never properly caught this Dickensian spoof in its audio form, but with the likes of Stephen Fry and Robert Webb on board, I wasn’t about to miss the TV version.

And I tell you want, it’s a hell of lot weirder than I thought it would be. When Jedrington Secret-Past (Webb) closes up shop for the festive period, his little daughter gives him a Jam Spaniel (a tiny dog-shaped jam roly poly pudding…) as a Christmas present, and when he goes off to get ingredients for the Christmas feast, he’s given a brace of “Tinsel-Tits”.

Odd. But really good. This was silly stuff that was both broad and surreal and there were some brilliant cameos — especially from the wonderful Celia Imrie. I’m not sure whether we’ll be seeing any more of Evans’s bizarre Victorian world on telly, but I certainly hope so.

Outnumbered

When the Brockman family first appeared, the thing that made Outnumbered so special was the apparent spontaneity of the then very, very young children. Over the past few years, the child actors have clearly become a lot more self-aware, and while it’s always been enjoyable, it’s also been a bit of a bumpy transition.

This Christmas (Eve) special, however, was one of the best episodes I’ve seen in ages. Putting the emphasis of this comedy-drama squarely on the drama, there were some lovely moments, in particular the usually foot-in-mouth merchant Ben knowing exactly what to say to a man feeling rather lonely this Christmas. I thought Outnumbered had run its course; this episode suggests that doesn’t have to be the case.

A Downton Christmas

The second series of Downton Abbey got a luke-warm critical response — though the viewing figures held up pretty well — and I think it’s fair to say that the previously gossamer-light show struggled to bear the weight of the First World War.

We’re heading towards the Roaring Twenties now, though, which seems to suit the programme rather more, and, (spoilers!) thanks to last night’s two-hour epic we can start afresh without mean old Sir Richard getting in the way. Not that one imagines Matthew and Lady Mary’s engagement will be completely smooth, of course, but they at least had a perfect romantic moment in the snow in this Christmas special as they finally got their act together.

As ever, it was Dame Maggie Smith‘s superlative Dowager Countess who got all the best lines, not least this zing in response to Sir Richard saying it’s unlikely they’ll meet again: “Is that a promise?”

With Downton entering the 20s, let’s look forward to Violet reacting to the house’s first wireless with cynical astonishment, Edith causing a sensation with a flapper dress and heated debates about the Suffragette movement — with a pregnant Sybil leading from the front, no doubt. Sounds good, right?

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So, a pretty and beloved princess has been kidnapped and the only way she’ll be returned safely to her royal home is if the Prime Minister has sex with a pig live on television. As premises for a Sunday evening drama go, it’s safe to say this is one of the more audacious of 2011. Downton it ain’t…

(Very) Black Mirror

We all know that Charlie Brooker is one hell of a columnist and critic, but he’s also barely put a foot wrong when it comes to fiction. Sitcom Nathan Barley — which satirised Hoxton media twits — was not, it’s fair to say, a critical success, but one of the main complaints was that it satirised something that was already out of date. If anything, it now feels ahead of its time; I for one would love to see what Ashcroft makes of the Twitterati.

Dead Set (zombies in the Big Brother house) fared rather better, and now there’s The National Anthem, the first of a three part mini-series of Twilight Zone-inspired sci-fi satires called Black Mirror. This has been hugely lauded, and rightly so — well cast, well written and with a premise to make your stomach turn, it was something genuinely different from the genuinely different mind of Mr Brooker.

There were a few funny lines along the way (I loved the TV news editor telling his graphics guys to “keep it functional, no Peppa Pig”) but this was no comedy; indeed it was played dead straight by the excellent cast which included Rory Kinnear, Lindsay Duncan and Tom Goodman-Hill. And the reaction to the bizarre ransom demand on social networks, on TV and in homes around the country was pitched perfectly — outrage, disgust, jokes and, ultimately, morbid fascination.

If anything, it was all too real for 45 minutes to carry off the “denouement”, shall we call it. Every other element of this drama was so realistic that for the PM to actually go through with it for the sake of public opinion…? It was a bit too much to take, in a couple of senses. But in the main, The National Anthem is to be applauded: brave, well-made, and it made its point clearly, concisely and very creatively.

Nice guys finish first

There’s a lot to dislike about reality TV, but one criticism that is utterly invalid is that it rewards idiots and idiotic behaviour. Nope, from The X Factor to Big Brother, if you want to win, the best thing you can do is be nice, funny and charming. Misha B may well have been the most talented contestant on The X Factor this year, but her card was marked the moment she was accused of upsetting other acts, no matter what the truth.

Nowhere is this more true than on this year’s I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here, where TOWIE’s Mark and McFly’s Dougie “battled it out” to be King of the Jungle. The quotation marks are key there, are they were just really decent people who got on well and supported each other through the final eat-an-anus Bush Tucker Trial. Dougie won in the end — certainly to his surprise, but deservedly so — and so we’re relying on drummer Harry to make it a McFly double over on Strictly Come Dancing.

It’s become received wisdom that this year’s series of Strictly is the best ever, but that’s only because it’s absolutely true. There have been some superb routines and, your inevitable Russell Grants aside, people have generally been voted out when it’s been their time. It’ll be, I’m sure, a Chelsee vs Harry final, and that will make it the most high-quality final ever. For having no dance experience, and for actually managing to make the dreaded Rhumba look good, it’s got to be Harry to win. And that’ll be yet another nice guy who finishes first.

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Any regular readers of What We’ve Been Watching will know that I love few things more than a great nature programme, and you don’t get much greater than one led by the unimprovable David Attenborough.

It’s a cruel, cruel world…

…but a beautiful one, if BBC One’s flagship nature programme Frozen Planet is anything to go by. It’s narrated by David Attenborough, it’s got its own BBC ident. Was this EVER going to be anything other than superb?

And it really, really is. What I particularly love about this series is that, like the excellent Yellowstone, it shows us things we’ve literally never seen before. Not the wildlife so much, perhaps, but the scenery itself — those trees completely enveloped in snow from root to tip; the melting ice sheets with 1000 waterfalls in spring; icicle caves so stunning they almost look fake… Staggering stuff.

There are, of course, also the animals and set-pieces we would expect. You can’t have a nature programme set in the Antarctic without footage of penguins taking to their bellies to slide into the water, or in the Arctic without a little polar bear cub… well, not making it through the winter.

It’s majestic, brutal, funny and awe-inspiring — and it’s why we love the BBC.

This week, I have mostly been watching…

…Fast Show Faster online — courtesy of those defenders of British comedy, Fosters. In the spirit of complete openness, I should say that The Fast Show is probably in my top 5 TV shows of all time, along with Blackadder, Spaced and a couple of others that drift in and out depending on my mood. Being *such* a big fan means I couldn’t even be cynical about the show’s return, especially with the entire cast (minus Mark Williams) back on board, including the wonderful Caroline Aherne.

The result is not, it has to be said, flawless — in fact, it gets off to a decidedly ropey start with a new Ted & Ralph sketch that lacks the beautiful subtlety of the originals. But then, the originals were pretty much perfect. The very, very drunk Rowley Birkin QC is on form though and putting Monkfish into a Downton Abbey-type situation is fun. The trailer suggests that most characters you’d care to mention — from the ‘Brilliant!’ guy to crazeeee office worker Colin Hunt — will be back, and as long as Charlie Higson and Paul Whitehouse treat them with their characteristic affection, I’ll be watching.

I Spy a hit…

And finally for this week, can I just reaffirm my love for Sky One comedy Spy? That, I must say, is not a sentence I ever expected to write, but it is ruddy good. Darren Boyd has physical humour down pat — his over-casual, 30 degree lean while trying to woo his colleague was inspired last week — the dialogue is quick, and there is, surprisingly, something of the surreal about this show. Precocious kid running a mafia-style casino under the guise of a book club, anyone? Funny, silly and brilliantly performed.

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I’ve been burnt many times before, so when a new comedy comes along that looks promising, I’ve learned not to get too excited. Perhaps it was that trepidation, then, that ultimately enhanced my enjoyment of a new sitcom featuring Green Wing alumnus Darren Boyd and a My Family-free Robert Lindsay…

With my little eye…

Sky hasn’t been known for its homegrown comedy, but it has put a surprising amount of time and energy into changing that recently. Mount Pleasant and Trollied have already aired, and Craig Cash’s very-good-looking-indeed The Cafe starts soon; for now though we’ve got Spy, starring Darren Boyd, with Robert Lindsay making the odd cameo.

And you know what? I really loved it. I know, a Sky One comedy! (It’s fine, we’re all telly snobs here.) Darren Boyd has been around for years – you’ll know his face, if not the name, from Green Wing and Whites – but I have to say I’ve never taken much notice of him before. But I’m happy to say that he’s genuinely brilliant here as under-achieving divorcee dad Tim who stumbles into a job with MI5. His pious, genius son is a great character, and Horrible Histories‘ Matthew Baynton is really funny and very well cast as Tim’s weird best friend.

It has to be said that elements of this felt familiar – I suspect writer/creator Simeon Goulden is a big Spaced fan, and the scene in which Tim disrupts the entrance exam is pure Men In Black. But none of that lessened my enjoyment – Goulden is borrowing from the best there, after all – and I was chuckling throughout. Give it a go.

Razzle Dazzle ‘em

It’s been in the papers over the last couple of days that Strictly Come Dancing is really holding its own against The X Factor juggernaut in the ratings this year. Maybe that’s because there’s actually more talent on show over on BBC One – it’s a seriously strong year. Jason Donovan‘s camp tango ruled this weekend, and I love watching Chelsee dance, even if she is generally under-marked. Saturday nights are sofa nights…

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It’s not cool to like panel shows, and as a supporter of creative, doesn’t-always-work-on-TV comedy, I know I’m meant to complain about the combative, macho atmosphere generated by the likes of Mock The Week. But sometimes, having funny people sitting around being funny is… well, just really funny.

Show, tell, be funny

One new panel show that is actually championing those very same creative comedians that are so loved on the live circuit is E4′s Show + Tell. Presented by Chris Addison, it simply invites comics to bring a few things in and talk about them in a humourous way — what’s unusual is that the comics aren’t the familiar shiny-suit, observational types or one-liner merchants that we’re used to seeing on TV.

Take last week’s line-up: Maeve Higgins, Nick Helm and Elis James. Excellent comedians to a (wo)man, but hardly household names — and for this, the show is to be applauded. Because they’re great! Charming, eloquent and all thoroughly deserving of this airtime, and each contributing to a genuinely lovely show that takes its time. Let’s hope for a re-commission.

Still Mocking the weak?

As for Mock The Week, it is worth saying that this is a very different show to the one that appeared on our telly-boxes a few years ago — when I think the bear-pit comparisons were appropriate. I really liked Frankie Boyle‘s spiky contributions, but the programme-makers have been wise to go with Chris Addison (him again), who brings well-informed silliness, as a permanent panellist, rather than trying to find a direct replacement. And yes, a few more women on the show would be nice.

Doctor Spanx will see you now

Much, much more heart-warming though — and just plain funnier, I’d say — is BBC One’s Would I Lie To You. The show gets a lovely mix of guests but at its core is the genius idea of pitting David Mitchell and Lee Mack against each other as team captains. The highbrow vs lowbrow, South vs North dynamic is endlessly entertaining, and they are so quick, so sharp. I laugh out loud every week.

And in this latest series in particular, the producers seem perfectly happy to throw in a few lies per episode that are so utterly unbelievable that the guest can just have fun with it without being shackled by the need to make it sound plausible. A well-told, utterly convincing lie is impressive; a ridiculous one can be hilarious. Enter the supreme David O’Doherty, charged with persuading the opposing team that he is seeing a hypno-therapist to get over his addiction to hypno-therapists. THIS, ladies and gentlemen, is entertainment…

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The last time we spent time at Downton Abbey, the residents were reeling at the news that war had broken out – an announcement that rather put their squabbles over who would inherit the estate into perspective. For the second series we meet them all two years on, and with most of the men of the house both above and below stairs doing their duty on the front line, how are Lord Grantham, Lady Mary et al coping with a rapidly changing world….?

It took me a while to get into Downton Abbey — the first episode was really pretty dull and apparently I was meant to like Lady Mary, even though she was positively *beastly* to lovely Dan Stevens… I mean, Matthew Crawley. Obviously. But then it all went a bit melodramatic and ridiculous — a Turkish diplomat found in Lady Mary’s bed, ‘good’ and ‘bad’ characters drawn broadly (apart from Lady Mary herself, perhaps, and Maggie Smith’s delightful Dowager), secrets, rebellion… ah, that’s more like it. Just like a frankly massive 10 million others, I was hooked.

The ITV Juggernaut

Now it’s back, a major part of ITV1′s unbreakable dominance of weekend telly along with The X Factor and Jonathan Ross‘s new (but not terribly different) chat show, and once again, it is much more concerned with entertainment than subtlety. Take the scene in which we met the honourable Mr Bates’s estranged wife, er Mrs Bates (ok, Vera). Can you remember a more pantomime villain appearing on your TV screen lately? She might as well have been twirling a moustache and tying poor Anna to some train-tracks. It was not, I think it’s fair to say, a highlight.

There were some nicer, more satisfying scenes elsewhere though. Matthew Crawley, now part of the officer class at the Somme, returned to Downton with a sweet fiancée (the fabulously-named Miss Lavinia Swire) in tow, and Lady Mary — whom I have warmed to, of course — is putting on a brave face. Michelle Dockery portrayed this quiet heartbreak beautifully, and Stevens managed to be blithely charming while completely missing the turmoil that she was going through. Their scenes were superb, and it’ll be interesting to see what skeletons Miss Swire has hidden in her no-doubt elegant closet (they’re there, mark my words).

Meanwhile downstairs…

…it was quite heartening to see that even mean old Mrs O’Brien didn’t like new girl Ethel Parks, a maid who spends most of her time complaining about what she sees as terrible conditions at Downton, and dreaming of becoming a Hollywood starlet. Plus, the relationship between lovely William and Daisy seems to be getting somewhere, though whether she’s just feeling sorry for him… we’ll have to wait and see.

It’s over the top, even silly at times, but then it suddenly floors you with a brilliant witty line here, a lovely scene there. I’ve no doubt that series two be a rocky trip, but it’s one I’m looking forward to.

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You can’t fault Channel 4‘s commitment to new comedy. Every year they try out a bunch of pilots in a primetime slot in their Comedy Showcase strand, and over on E4 that’s backed up with slightly more left-field offerings in Comedy Lab. So how did the first of this year’s crop, Chickens, fare?

Inbetweeners Goes Forth?

Much like Peep Show, it’s understandable that some people assume that the stars of gross-out-but-sometimes-oddly-sweet teen sitcom The Inbetweeners – Simon Bird, Joe Thomas, James Buckley and Blake Harrison – actually wrote the show, as they seem to fit their characters so well. Not so, however — that honour belongs to (Damon Beesley and Iain Morris) but Bird and Thomas are in fact pretty experienced comedy writers, having performed (and impressed) at the Edinburgh Fringe with their show ‘The Meeting’, created with award-winning stand-up comic Jonny Sweet.

For Chickens, these three have got back together and produced a properly entertaining half hour pilot in which they play the only three men left in a pretty Heart-of-England village during the First World War. They each have their reasons for staying behind: Cecil (Bird) isn’t allowed in the army on account of his flat feet, teacher George (Thomas) is a conscientious objector and Bert (Sweet)… well he just finds it difficult to remember there’s a war on, what with all the girls (and women, and old ladies) of the village distracting him the whole time.

There was an element of farce about this — Cecil ends up accidentally peeing on a tree planted in remembrance of a dead soldier — but as with so many sitcoms, Chickens actually works best when it’s just the three leads chatting and bickering. Jonny Sweet, I think, pretty much steals the show. As a self-centred lothario, he’s simultaneously incredibly creepy and massively watchable — here, as with his stand-up, it’s his delivery that makes him so much fun. All the best comics can make an apparently simple word sound hilarious and Sweet is no different. Just take a listen to how he says the word ‘crow’.

Saturday night with Jonathan Ross

I’ve always been a Wossy supporter. Friday Night… was great fun, and his Saturday morning Radio 2 show was superb until Sachsgate meant the Beeb stopped it going out live. What’s the point if there isn’t that little element of danger? Boring. So I’m very glad indeed he’s back on the telly — but Jonathan Ross on ITV1? It feels odd, doesn’t it? Although he does seem to enjoy saying “we’ll be back after these messages”, like he’s some American TV anchor from the 1950s…

There are some superficial changes to the format (neither the 4 Poofs nor their piano have made it to ITV) but basically this is the same Jonathan Ross chat show we’re used to, and if you liked it before and can stand the adverts, you’ll still like it. He was funny, he made a few slightly naughty comments, he fawned over his guests. It was business as usual. Welcome back.

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