Jasper Rees talks to Angus Deayton

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Do you like to speak in strange accents, or sometimes complete gibberish? Fancy telling the story of King Arthur in the style of Raymond Chandler? Feel the urge to stick your arms through someone else's sleeves, and pick their noses for them? If so, impro may be your only hope.

One noteworthy thing about the Tory leadership contest is that the declared contestants are not half so interesting as the undeclared contestants, so today I am ignoring the two men already with their hats in the ring and bringing you a list of some of those who will be slugging it out in the second ballot.

Bob Monkhouse said he thought it might be 14 years since he last played Cheltenham Town Hall, but he couldn't be sure. "I do remember one thing, though," he added. "I died on my arse."

Raoul Heertje is Holland's 'best circumcised' comedian. That may be so, says James Rampton, but what is he doing here and what does he want with our politicians?

The problem with quiz shows is that they tend to hang around. Once settled on a winning formula, the quiz show clings to it for dear life, refusing to alter the smallest detail. If Frank Muir had ever switched his bow tie for a cravat, Call My Bluff would have been doomed at a stroke. If Question of Sport went out without David Coleman making a complete hash of a question, the BBC would be forced to flash up the "Do Not Adjust Your Set caption".

Live Bed Show Garrick, London

After the chat show came the chat-show spoof, in which bland, lazy sofa opera was mercilessly ridiculed. Now there are no more chat shows left, and the only competition the spoof faces is from its own kind. We can shortly expect the chat-show-spoof spoof, in which those who mercilessly ridicule bland, lazy sofa opera are themselves mercilessly ridiculed.

Radio: Peace broke out on Radio 1 last week. Just for an hour, mind you . Martin Kelner was there to record the unlikely sounding event

HARDBACKS 1 Writing Home by Alan Bennett Faber £17.50

Today I bring you the closing moments of this year's Moment Of The Year Award Ceremony, the glittering occasion at which the most significant single moment of 1994 is given its due.

Baffled by the mind-boggling array of Christmas books on offer in the shops? Boggle no more! Here is a handy cut-out-and-consult-in-Waterstone's Christmas '94 Good Book List! How to Survive Life Alone with a TV Film Crew Joanna Lumley BBC Spin-Offs, £9.99

IMAGINE you were one of the country's most experienced and popular media personalities. Your last vehicle has finished a 21-year run and you are given a new four-times-a-week talk show. You'd want the first sentence of your first programme to be a cracker. This is how Esther (BBC2) begins: 'Well, we live in violent times these days, the violence of war, the violence of crime in our streets, but since time began there's been another kind of secret violence that happens in families, and that's the violence between husband and wife.' Whoa, there. Are our times more violent and war-torn than others? Has domestic violence existed since the Big Bang? And why should the ChildLine chairwoman think only of adults when she talks of 'the secret violence that happens in families'? Another mystery is Esther Rantzen's summary of her new series: 'The difference between Esther and Oprah's show is the difference between Yorkshire pudding and pumpkin pie.'