Guardian Reader

The anonymous reader is a tall, lanky, floppy-haired, bearded, liberal, leftie, upper-middle class intellectual and former teacher. In other words, he’s the archetypal reader of the newspaper affectionately known as The Grauniad. Having become all too aware of the shortcomings of taking a paper that preaches to the converted, and appalled by his mother’s subscription to its antithesis, The Daily Mail, our hero attempts to remove himself from his snug, smug comfort zone by seeking some alternate points of view.

Unsurprisingly, Guardian Reader can’t bring himself to embrace them. But then, the set-up of the show is simply a jumping-off point for various musings about the state of the nation, the British media, our political elite and newspaper headline topics such as the London riots. The concept of the show gets lost in all this, but it doesn’t matter in the end because our reader’s observations are constantly funny and consistently on the mark. One thing: William Hammer-Lloyd ought to put his name in the title of his show; he’s good enough not to remain so anonymous.

The Caves, 556 5375, until 26 Aug, 11.45pm, £8--£9 (£7--£8).