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Richard Ayoade

The Cambridge-educated son of a Nigerian father and Swedish mother, Richard Ayoade first came to prominence starring in and co-writing the 2000 Edinburgh Fringe show Garth Merenghi's Fright Knight with Matthew Holness, winning the Perrier Award for its sequel, Garth Merenghi's Netherhead, the following year. The show transferred to Channel Four in 2004 as Garth Merenghi's Darkplace, before spawning the spin-off 80s chat show spoof, Man to Man with Dean Learner, fronted by Ayoade's 'smut-peddler' character.

Appearances in The Mighty Boosh and Nathan Barley were followed by his highest profile role to date in Graham Linehan's sitcom The IT Crowd, playing socially inept tech support worker Moss, a role he reprised for an unaired US adaptation in 2009.

Establishing a parallel career as a music video director for the likes of The Arctic Monkeys, Kasabian and The Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs, he directed his first film, the coming-of-age comedy-drama Submarine in 2010, and his second, The Double, a nightmarish, dystopian comedy-drama, loosely based on Fyodor Dostoevsky's novella, in 2014.

Second series for Ed Gamble's Unacceptable

Before the first has even aired

Ed Gamble-fronted panel show Unacceptable has been renewed for a second series, before the first has even aired.

The TLC channel will broadcast the initial run of six episodes – with Richard Ayoade and Joanne McNally as team captains – from this Sunday.

Now the broadcaster has confirmed eight further hour-long instalments, including a Christmas special, will air from November.

The format requires the comedian panellists to agree with views that are deliberately daft, niche or ill-advised, with a ‘swingometer’ tracking how many audience members each team wins over.

It also features challenges to put the comedians’ arguments to the test, and a ‘stitch-up round’ where panellists must defend unseen opinions written by the opposing team. In this preview clip from that round, McNally is forced to argue that women aren't funny:

Series one guests include Maisie Adam, Guz Khan, Joel Dommett, Katherine Ryan, Tom Davis and Romesh Ranganathan, whose company Ranga Bee Productions makes the programme.

Also appearing in series one are Alex Brooker, Lou Sanders, Kiell Smith-Bynoe, Sarah Keyworth, Fatiha El-Ghorri, Rhys James, Suzi Ruffell, Harriet Kemsley, Chris McCausland, Geoff Norcott, Lucy Beaumont, Ivo Graham, Jessica Knappett, Roisin Conaty, Sophie Willan, Catherine Bohart and Vittorio Angelone.