Laughing all the way to the weekend (with video links)

By Remote Control on Oct 26, 07 03:02 PM

Bad week? Struggling to smile? Feel like it's been five very long days in the office? Then fear not, because once again, Friday night is comedy night.

It's quite a while since I've looked at a terrestrial TV schedule and thought how much it is worth staying in for. Which seeing as I'm skint at the moment, is just as well.

Truth be told, this Friday's schedule isn't that different to last week's. First up is Have I Got News For You (BBC 1, 9pm).

This week's guest host is Chelsea-born Iranian comic Omid Djalili. It's the first time Omid has hosted, and he'll be joined on the show by Danny Baker, and writer and actor Julian Fellowes. Omid is also a successful movie star, and featured in several films including Gladiator, Spy Game, and The Mummy.

At 10pm it's over to Channel 4 for My Name is Earl (Channel 4, 10pm). Still funny, still the same, so no more description needed.

But it's what is on inbetween the two programme mentioned above that I'm excited about. Yes it's The Armstron and Miller Show (BBC 1, 9.30pm) .

In a nutshell, it's Ben Miller and Alexander Armstrong, reunited after a seven year sabbatical in hit comedy shows such as The Worst Week Of My Life (Miller), and Life Begins (Armstrong), returning to the small screen with their own particular brand of sketch comedy in The Armstrong & Miller Show.

Jeremy Dyson, from The League of Gentlemen, joins them as their script guru, bringing together what must be one of the best comedy teams around.

Expect a spanking new line-up of characters, among them Brabbins and Fyffe, the filthy alter-egos of Flanders and Swann; the divorced dad, who gives his son brutally honest answers to innocent questions; the inappropriate dentist, who regales his captive audience with tales of swinger parties and the state of his pet dog's prostate; and Tony and Dimitri, a hapless football manager and his Russian oligarch boss.

Wince at the near-the-knuckle instructions of a politically incorrect sat nav, and marvel at the very existence of Pru and Miranda, two fat ladies with the difference that they can't either cook or run Dandy Lion's, their brain-meltingly inefficient vegetarian restaurant in Hampstead.

Add to that nearly a hundred other characters and Armstrong and Miller's exquisite nose for the absurd and you have a show that can't fail to make you laugh.

Also tonight: Comedy Showcase (C4, 10.30pm), Comedy Lab: Doug Stanhope (11.35pm, C4) and Russell Brand's Ponderland (11.05pm, C4). It's so funny, you couldn't make it up.