Brand new comedy vehicle ‘Strap In – It’s Clever Peter’ airs for the first time on Radio 4 this Wednesday, broadcasting in the very same experimental late-night niche once occupied by ‘The Mighty Boosh’.

A Python-esque sketch collage written by and co-starring ‘Cabin Pressure’ players Richard Bond, Edward Eales-White, William Hartley and Dominic Stone, the show will give voice to “a pygmy hippo, some house eyes and The Pope”. I suppose we’ll have to wait and see – or rather, hear – just what “house eyes” are supposed to be.

Full details of first episode ‘Nigel’, which plays on 16 May between 11.15-11.30 pm, here.

While Justin Lee Collins continues to astound in ‘Rock Of Ages’, the latest unlikely telly type to take to the West End stage is comedian Jason Manford, who will this summer join the cast of Steven Sondheim’s blood-spattered ‘Sweeney Todd’.

Manford’s role in the production, as directed by Jonathan Kent, will be that of Adolfo Pirelli, the gregarious Italian barber (and Sweeney’s sworn rival) - played by  Sacha Baron Cohen in Tim Burton’s 2007 film version of the blood-spattered Todd tale.

Previews of Kent’s award-winning adaptation, which also stars Michael Ball and Imelda Staunton, are set to begin at the Apelphi Theatre this weekend.

The BBC has announced that part of the new development at its central London HQ, Broadcasting House, will be named the Peel Wing, after the late, great John Peel.

The new building, part of the wider overhaul and extension of Broadcasting House, has so far been known as the Egton Wing, named after the old building it replaced, which from 1985 to 1996 housed Radio 1. The nation’s favourite, currently housed in a building four minutes away off Great Portland Street, will take over the top floor of the new extension at the BBC HQ in the autumn and, for reasons not clear to anyone really, will have its own street level entrance, which will be in the Peel Wing, making it rather apt to name that bit of the new building after the station’s greatest.

Confirming the plan in a memo to staff last week, BBC Director General Mark Thompson said: “John was one of the BBC’s great radio talents, broadcasting regularly on Radio 1 from its launch in 1967. With a reputation for being in the vanguard, he was widely recognised as a champion of new music, supporting punk, reggae and hip hop before they went mainstream”.

He continued: “Well known to our global audiences through his work on the World Service, he later won over a whole new legion of fans with ‘Home Truths’ on Radio 4. John’s death in 2004 was sudden and shocking, especially for those of us who had grown up with him. However, his legacy lives on today not just in the UK, but around the world. He was a great ambassador for the BBC, and as we move into the BBC’s iconic new home at Broadcasting House, the Peel Wing will be a fitting tribute to a man who personified so much of what the BBC stands for – quality, creativity and innovation”.

A series of tweets from the official Royal Opera House Twitter account has confirmed that the BBC has begun filming  a second series of its celebrity conductor vehicle, aka ‘Maestro’, on location at the plush Covent Garden theatre.

According to the ROH, those competing for classical supremacy this time have been very much recruited from within the BBC fold, with Radio 1 DJ Trevor Nelson, ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ villain Craig Revel Horwood, actor/improv comedienne Josie Lawrence and science broadcaster Professor Marcus Du Sautoy amongst those poised to try their hand at a little light baton-wielding.

The first series back in 2008 featured the likes of drum n bass producer Goldie, actress Jane Asher, Blur’s Alex James, actor David Soul and news-man Peter Snow, and was screened in August and September of that year. The ROH reports that the contest’s eventual victor will have the chance to “conduct a full act with The Royal Opera on the main stage in front of thousands”, an honour that sounds very intimidating indeed.

Not as intimidating as this ‘Maestro’ computer game, though, which would surely have even 2008 winner Sue Perkins stumped.