No contest

As a big fan of Stewart Lee, I was disappointed to miss last week's 'Don't Get Me Started' on Five, in which Lee got his teeth into the subject of blasphemy. I gather that some of the stand-up footage was taken from the recording of his stand-up set at Chapter in March. Anyway, the thoughts of someone who did see it can be found here: "The biggest failing of the programme is its tragic one-sidedness - Lee only talks to people who share his opinion, which is a wasted opportunity if nothing else".

Thursday saw the last in the series of 'Time Trumpet', the Armando Iannucci show in which Lee made regular appearances. On reflection the quality of the material was a little uneven at times, but for the most part it was well worth tuning in for.

No sooner does 'Time Trumpet' disappear than more comedy appears to take its place on BBC2: 'That Mitchell And Webb Look' plus new series of 'Extras' and 'Mock The Week'. The BBC must be pleased to have poached Mitchell and Webb from C4, but I've not been that impressed by the trailers. I'll probably give it a go, though. By contrast, the clip from 'Extras' shown on 'Friday Night With Jonathan Ross' did make me laugh, but Ricky Gervais, appearing on the show, didn't convince me by suggesting that this series is more about the main characters than the guest stars. Last time around everything was geared around "deconstructing" (Gervais's word) the star guests, often in very obvious ways (see the Ross Kemp episode) and I doubt it'll have changed significantly since then. Still, I oughtn't write it off before the first episode's even aired.

In the meantime, I seem to be watching an awful lot of 'The Two Ronnies'...