The Secret Policeman's Other Ball

Technically smoother than its predecessors, this is otherwise the mixture as before: comics and musicians, sometimes in unfamiliar permutations, doing their party pieces on behalf of Amnesty. The musical punctuations are often outstanding: Sting soaring on a contemplative 'Message in a Bottle', Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton reunited for a loose-limbed blues. Among the bright moments: a perfectly controlled dialogue for John Fortune and Alan Bennett, a Billy Connolly ramble, and John Wells in his Denis Thatcher role.