Clive James on... Frozen Planet (BBC One), The Impressions Show (BBC One) and The Slap (BBC Four)

Screened as a curtain-raiser to Sir David Attenborough’s Frozen Planet on BBC One, The Impressions Show, starring Jon Culshaw and Debra Stephenson, induced fewer feelings of sudden death than I had expected. Old age has made me suspicious of young comedians who work mainly by copying what they see on the tube. This current show could have been a bad formula, with nothing to appreciate except the fidelity of the mimics’ inflections and gestures, all cribbed from the original after deep study. But someone has ensured that the standard of writing is quite high: rather higher, in fact, than almost any other comedy show on the air at the moment. So there is wit to fall back on.    More Read