The best of the week's comedy on TV and radio

The comedy week ahead on TV and radio

Sunday April 14

8 OUT OF 10 CATS:  Johnny Vegas, Alex Brooker, Anna Richardson and Sophie Duker join Jimmy Carr, Rob Beckett and guest team captain Katherine Ryan. E4, 9pm

Monday April 15

NOT GOING OUT: Lee Mack's comedy – the longest-running sitcom on air – returns to BBC One. In episode one, Hugh Dennis's character Toby organises a sponsored parachute jump with Lee (Mack) and Lucy (Sally Bretton), Lee's feckless father, Frank (Bobby Ball) and Lucy's disappointed father Geoffrey (Geoffrey Whitehead) and Nice Mum Wendy (Deborah Grant) all agreeing to take part. BBC One, 9pm

GHOSTS: The new comedy from the team behind Horrible Histories lands on BBC One. Charlotte Ritchie and Kiell Smith-Bynoe play a young couple who inherit a country house, which just happens to be haunted by a menagerie of spirits from down the ages. Read an interview with some of the creators here. BBC One, 9,30pm

TRAVEL MAN: 48 HOURS IN ATHENS Richard Ayoade is back for an eighth series, starting with Dawn French in the cradle of Western civilisation. Channel 4, 8.30pm

Wednesday April 17

URBAN MYTHS: This week's episode covers the bizarre story of when Donald Trump auditioned cheerleader auditions in the basement of Trump Tower with a panel of  judges, including Andy Warhol. 30 Rock's Jack McBrayer plays the artist and long-time Trump impersonator Anthony Atamanuik in the 1984 version of the future president. Other stars inlcude, Natasia Demetriou, Rich Hall, Pearl Mackie, Paul Putner and Mike Wozniak. Sky Arts, 9pm

Friday April 19

THE COMEDY YEARS: Over the Easter weekend, ITV2 is running this new nightly nostalgia show looking at how comedy reflected a changing Britain over the past four decades. Tonight's opening episode looks at 1979. A pivotal year for politics – in which Margaret Thatcher was elected – and stand-up, with the opening of the Comedy Store. On television, we saw a return to political satire, with Not The Nine O'Clock News introducing new comedians Mel Smith, Griff Rhys-Jones, Pamela Stephenson and Rowan Atkinson, sitting in the schedules alongside older-school stand-ups The Cannon & Ball Show and The Comedians. It's also the year that saw a new breed of alternative comedians making a name for themselves, with the opening of The Comedy Store. ITV3, 9pm

HAVE I GOT NEWS FOR YOU:  Steph McGovern is in the host's chair and the guests are journalist Ash Sarkar and comedian Josh Widdicombe.BBC One, 9pm

THE COMEDY YEARS: Tonight's year is 1984 – the time of the miners' strike, and of Spitting Image. It was also the year when alternative comedy burst into the mainstream, with The Young Ones and Alas Smith And Ones battling more mainstream shows like Russ Abbott's Madhouse. It was also the year we lost Eric Morecambe and Tommy Cooper. ITV3, 9pm.

Published: 14 Apr 2019