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You’d think Adrian Edmondson would have left his flatsharing days far behind him in the 1980s, along with his psychotic The Young Ones incarnation Vyvyan, but he’s getting back into the old Pot Noodle, mouldy-cheese-in-the-fridge game for ITV’s latest stab at sitcom glory, Teenage Kicks.

The series, which started out life on Radio 2, debuts on ITV1 on Friday 28 March and stars Edmondson as ageing rocker and ultimate embarrassing dad Vernon who moves in with his student kids when his wife throws him out.

If we’re honest, it owes more to cosy shows like My Family than the anarchy that Edmondson is usually associated with, but it’s a fairly inoffensive way to spend half an hour on Friday night when you don’t fancy popping down to the pub.

We caught up with Edmondson to find out more…

How would you sum up the show? Vernon has just divorced and has nowhere to go so he moves in with his kids and has to live in the cupboard under the stairs. He moves in promising to stay for three days and the series starts three months after he has moved in and there doesn’t look to be any sign of him moving out.

What is he like? He used to be in a band at uni and thinks he is a songwriter although he has never sold a song but he has lived off a very successful wife who is a Euro MP. I really like him although he is an idiot. He thinks he could be young again, but he just wants his kids to love him.

Is this a traditional sitcom? It is definitely a family sitcom but in an inverted form, they have to look after a stupid child rather than him look after them. It is aimed at anyone who has ever been a parent or a child, which is everyone!

How do his kids feel about him moving in? His daughter Milly has only just got to uni so you can imagine how mortified she is, she’s just about to experiment and do all the things she wasn’t allowed to do at home and then her dad moves into the cupboard. He is completely impinging on her newfound independence. Max, the son, is older and always out clubbing for 48 hours at a time, which is the kind of life that Vernon would really like. Their other flatsharer is David Chang, a Hong Kong engineering student who is very strait-laced and Vernon sees him as a potential student to teach how to be groovy, but David’s hero is Phil Collins so it is hard one to crack.

What antics does Vernon get up to? Most of the episodes are based on themes. One is based on sex where he goes out speed dating and on a blind date and then he meets Milly’s tutor who is rather attractive. We have one about health where he goes to a rave and ends up in hospital. In another he is left alone for the weekend and decides to commit suicide but because he hasn’t got his reading glasses on it doesn’t go quite according to plan. And in another they throw him out and he ends up on the street wearing his skis and he finishes up in hospital again.

Does he have any friends? Bryan (Mark Arden) is his old friend from school and uni; he was in the band and was much more successful at pulling than him. But now he is a very straight deputy head, so they meet every week and there is a niggle about which one has got the better life.

What was the inspiration for the show? When I did Comic Relief Does Fame Academy I was in my late 40s with groovy young people like Edith Bowman and Reggie Yates and I deluded myself into thinking I was one of them and was young and brilliant. But I realised they just thought I was an old buffoon instead of one of their mates and they were calling me Uncle Ade. I just like to think I invented youth culture single-handedly, that all 70s music is just being copied now and that they should be grateful to me for trailblazing the way rather than treating me like someone who should be sitting down with some cocoa.

Have you enjoyed doing another TV sitcom? It has been a while since I have been in a really good one! I love doing them; it’s what I grew up doing and what I really love. When it works and when it is on song it is just brilliant, there is no better job in the world.

Are there any parallels with The Young Ones? They’re not linked but I think it is useful for people to know that’s what I used to do, because when Vernon protests that he used to be a groovy young student they can think: ‘well, he could have been,’ because I used to play one. But unlike Vyvyan, Vernon has no punch in him. Although I think Vyvyan would be a very straight consultant now, he was based on medical students we knew and hospitals are full of people who used to be wild and they all become intelligent and sensible.

Are you an embarrassing dad yourself? I don’t think I am, but I’m sure that’s what my kids think of me, I never dare ask them outright but I’m sure they don’t think I am groovy. I joined Facebook once and it sent off automated emails asking my kids if they wanted me to be their friend and I got the weirdest replies back saying: ‘Why are you on Facebook!’

Is there any of the frustrated rocker in you too? Absolutely, I should have been a musician but I was never good enough. I play all the time but I’m just not a famous singer, which I would dearly like to have been. I have been in the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band and did a tour and made an album and now I am trying to do another music project with Phill Jupitus. There is nothing better than playing music.

What are you doing next? I am back at Holby City. Abra comes back as a patient because some trauma has happened in Africa and he will be sponging off Ric. I’m sure people are surprised I’m in it, but I don’t give a toss. I have always liked it. It’s like any soap – if you watch it, you get stuck in. I love working on it.

Last year’s celebrity version of The Apprentice in aid of Comic Relief provided one of our favourite TV moments of 2007 when Piers Morgan was finally given his marching orders by Sir Alan.

This year’s, in aid of Sport Relief, will see a team of male celebs including ex-editor of The Sun Kelvin MacKenzie and Phil Tuffnell take on a women’s team featuring Kirstie Allsopp and Louise Rednkapp as they run rival shops in the West End of London. And, judging from the preview clip below, promises to be every bit as enjoyable.

The fun begins on BBC1 tomorrow night at 9pm and concludes at around 9.30pm on Friday.

8.00, Unknown Africa, BBC2
NEW SERIES Wildlife presenter Saba Douglas-Hamilton ventures off the beaten track in her native Africa, travelling to parts of the continent she has never seen before which have largely escaped the attention of other film-makers too.

10.00, Keith Lemon’s Very Brilliant World Tour, ITV2
NEW SERIES Bo’ Selecta star Leigh Francis gives his comedy creation Keith a show of his own. In a bizarre mix of comedy and reality TV, the blond, self-styled ladies’ man travels the world with various celebrity companions in tow. The famous faces letting their guard down include Dermot O’Leary, Tamzin Outhwaite and Holly Willoughby. First stop – Vegas!

10.30, Laura, Ben and Him, ITV2
NEW SERIES Up-and-coming comedians Laura Solon, Ben Willbond and Marek Larwood are the stars of this promising new sketch show, with characters including a foul-mouthed vicar, two macho City bankers having a bit of a Brokeback Mountain moment, and a pair of obsessive cyclists who literally bore people to death.

6.15, Athletics, Eurosport
LIVE There’s loads of athletics action today, with highlights on Eurosport from 11.45am, but the live coverage starts at 6.15, and you can also see it on BBC2 from 7.30. The race everyone will be watching is the 60m, as controversial sprinter Dwain Chambers returns to the track after a two-year ban.

9.00, New Hero of Comedy, Channel 4
This week’s featured comedian is Sacha Baron Cohen, who has gained notoriety with his outrageous characters Ali G and Borat. Friends and victims of his maverick interviewing style discuss the impact of his comic creations.

10.35, Friday Night with Jonathan Ross, BBC1
Ex-EastEnder Michelle Ryan joins Rossy to talk about her starring role in the glossy remake of Bionic Woman, which begins next Tuesday on ITV2. The other guests are Goldie Hawn and chef Jean-Christophe Novelli, and there’s music from 1960s Motown group The Temptations.

If you’ve been watching Bravo’s highly implausible but fun new heist drama The Kill Point, you may, like us, have found yourself playing Who’s That Corner Boy? on several occasions.

Two episodes in, and we’ve already spotted three faces from The Wire. With the fifth and, sadly, final season of that particular series yet to hit our screens, we can’t help feeling it just doesn’t seem right to have them playing away from the projects…

War veteran turned heister Mr Cat (second from right, played by J D Williams) was last seen face-down on a Baltimore corner as ’Bodie’ Broadus, after being capped by crimelord Marlo’s henchmen.

Leo Fitzpatrick, who played Bubbles’ doomed drug buddy Johnny Weeks, is Mr Cat’s colleague Mr Mouse (second left – and, yes, there is a Reservoir Dogs theme developing here).

And finally, and most shocking, Omar Little (Michael K Williams), Baltimore’s finest stick-up artist, is rigged out in full SWAT uniform as ‘Q’, fighting for the good guys! Omar would turn in his grave.

We caught up with rising young star Nathalie Lunghi, who recently appeared in The Palace and will soon be gracing your screens again in BBC3 teen drama The Things I Haven’t Told You.

How would you describe The Things I Haven’t Told You?
It’s a David Lynch style, dark thriller but also young and exciting – full of twists and turns you don’t expect. Every character has a secret, so much so that a lot of the actors didn’t even know what they are. All of the characters are petrified that their secrets are going to come out and ruin their reputations.

Is it still a teen drama at heart?
I don’t think of it as a teen drama because there is so much other stuff going on that you wouldn’t typically associate with one. None of us are fans of the usual teenage shows, to the point of being anti them. Everyone who made the show was young so it feels uniquely real and not patronising. It’s an observation of teenagers put in extremely stressful situations and seeing how they deal with them. It deals with the dark side of the internet for example and is definitely darker than most teen dramas at the moment. The writers have told us it will only get more shocking if it is turned into a series. Some of the secrets are certainly unexpected.

Did you know what was going to happen to your character, Geri, when you started filming?
We all agreed at the beginning that it would be helpful not to know each other’s secrets if that was how it was written for the characters. But I did know Geri’s secret, although there’s still a lot they haven’t told us – as it were – about where those secrets will lead and how they will develop.

So you would be as frustrated as the viewers if it didn’t become a series?
Yes, definitely. It’s also an incredible drama and like nothing else on TV. The director has made something incredibly visual which you don’t see every day.

Geri is the school bully. Was it difficult for you to play her?
It was difficult because I’m not a bitch like her! When I was at school I was bullied a bit so it was hard to play the bully for a change. It was fun eventually and you respond to how the other people react to you when you’re filming. I enjoyed the power after a while. I didn’t enjoy being mean to people who I had become great friends with and felt I had to say sorry to some of the others after a particularly nasty scene. In the original script I was shocked by how vicious Geri was, but in auditions and rehearsals they kept saying take it further – be really mean! In fact, she’s not just a spoilt bitch and she has her reasons. I think she’s started to believe her own hype too much. Also, she lives in a huge house without her parents around a lot so she’s not got a lot to fall back on. Without anyone to care about her, she’s been let loose to behave how she wants.
And what will happen to her nemesis Aisling [Elizabeth Day], seeing as her death starts the story?
The story is told in flashback by Aisling, but it’s going to be as much about what happens after she dies as it is about what happens in the build up to her dying, which is what makes the idea of a series so intriguing. We’ll have to wait and see.

You’ve starred in ITV1’s The Palace this year too. What else is coming up for you?
I have my fingers crossed about both The Palace getting a second series and The Things I Haven’t Told You being commissioned. I can’t say yes to anything else until I know, and I don’t really want to move on from them yet either. The Palace was great fun to film. Spending three months in Lithuania was fantastic and the cast were amazing. I learnt so much from the older actors and I was pleased that my character, Princess Isabelle, got to be so rebellious! I know what would happen to her if there is a second series and her story has some interesting turns to come. She becomes even nastier in her rebellion against her family. While her sister, Princess Eleanor [Sophie Winkleman], wants to be queen, Isabelle doesn’t believe in any of it. She doesn’t want anything to do with it.

Please sir, can I have a job… Yes, Graham Norton is back with another star search and, this time around, he’s looking for a Nancy in a new West End production of Oliver!

I’d Do Anything begins on Saturday 15 March on BBC1, and promises to be essential viewing here at TV & Satellite Week Towers.

As much as we loved the ever-so-slightly-creepy-looking Andrew Lloyd Webber’s previous trawls for a new Maria and Joseph, we much prefer top-hatted pickpockets, kindly prostitutes and a bit of oom-pah-pah to twee nuns or sartorially-dressed biblical figures.

The series kicks off with nationwide auditions as girls from all over the land give their best Cockernee tart-with-a-heart impressions as they audition to play ill-fated Nancy.

In a new twist – pardon the pun – to the main search, Lloyd Webber is also looking for some wide-eyed, urchin-faced little boys to ask for more and become the next Oliver.

When it gets to the live knockout stages, John Barrowman and Denise Van Outen will be back on the judging panel, along with Barry Humphries, who has played Fagin on stage. Maybe Dame Edna herself might audition for Nancy!

We caught up with Norton to find out more – click on the read more link below to, er… read more!

Has the format changed from the Maria and Joseph shows?
We’ve mixed it up a bit. This time we’re casting for two roles – Nancy and Oliver. We’ve been absolutely overwhelmed by the response for Nancy. Ten thousand girls auditioned, and we were still seeing people at midnight.

Why is the role of Nancy so popular?
I think it’s because no-one has a fixed idea of what Nancy looks like. She could be young, old, tall, thin, black, white. So whereas many girls thought, “I don’t stand a chance as Maria”, Nancy is wide open. It’s almost upsetting how much they want the part, because roles like this hardly ever come along.

What’s the situation with the Olivers?
We have our top 12, but the public won’t be voting for them. We felt that would be too cruel and exposing. They were supposed to be a little sideline to the Nancy search, but believe me, the Olivers are going to steal the show. They’re fabulous.

Theatre producer Cameron Mackintosh is involved this time, isn’t he?
Yes. He’ll be putting the show on in the West End, but Andrew Lloyd Webber is still the one with the power to save people or send them home. I imagine Cameron will get really upset some weeks and I wouldn’t be surprised if there are fisticuffs!

Will this be the last of the Lloyd Webber talent shows?
I really don’t know. Every year we think it will be the last one because it’s such hard work. But I think this is going to be the most hard-fought, and probably the most controversial.

9.00, The Fastest Man on No Legs, Five
NEW The Extraordinary People features the amazing Oscar Pistorius, a Paralympian who has caused no end of controversy by asking if he can compete against able-bodied athletes in the Olympics.

9.00, Rock Rivals, ITV1
NEW SERIES Michelle Collins and Sean Gallagher play rival judges on a Pop Idol-esque TV talent show who are going through a bitter divorce, with the nastiness inevitably spilling over into their professional lives as they search for the next big pop star. The show’s makers claim it’s going to be as bitchy and over-the-top as Footballers’ Wives, and there’ll be a real-life viewers’ vote for the talent show winner at the end.

10.00, The Kill Point, Bravo
NEW SERIES John Leguizamo leads a group of disillusioned ex-marines on a daring bank heist, but when it goes wrong he finds himself pitted against dogged hostage negotiator Donnie Wahlberg in a game of wit and bravado.