Apropos my last blog on the return of the Fast Show, my attention has been drawn to this YouTube clip dating from their BBC2 series in the mid-nineties and featuring a skinny young raven-haired stage school tyke called Amy Winehouse. Maybe she can be persuaded to reprise her cameo as third shepherd and join them onstage at the Dominion this November...

Call it the resurrection shuffle. November is starting to look like nostalgia month for me. I'd only just booked my tickets for the Sex Pistols reunion gig at Brixton Academy when far more exciting news came through. The Fast Show team is reuniting for a one-off show at the Dominion Theatre on November 4th. As one of Paul Whitehouse's characters would say, "Brilliant!"

OK, so they didn't change the type of trousers we wore, but their speedy sketch formats were thrillingly funny back in the nineties. The only thing I worry about is whether they can keep up the frantic pace now that they are in their creaky-boned forties. At their Carling Apollo residency nearly a decade ago they pulled out all the stops with an enviable quick-change performance, which was nice. Sales in Velcro must have rocketed after that and I suspect Little Britain learnt a thing or two about live gigs from it.

Times have changed for the Fast Show team, of course. This will be Paul Whitehouse's first major live appearance since appearing in Maidstone Crown Court earlier this year and demolishing Chris Langham's defence that he viewed child pornography as research for Help, the comedy-and-therapy show he was working on with Whitehouse. He probably needs a laugh after that.

As for Charlie "Charles" Higson, he is better know as the author of the young James Bond novels and hardly needs the money. In fact even John Thomson, Arabella Weir, Mark Williams and Simon Day work regularly so hardly need one last pay-day (I presume original member Caroline "Scorchio!" Aherne won't be chipping in. Shame). OK, so private school fees and second homes in Tuscany might eat away at the bank balance, but I don't think this group is doing it for the cash – although who can blame them for looking at Ricky Gervais's recent record-breaking tour and fancying a piece of that action?

Or at least not totally for the cash. Never mind alcohol and drug addiction, comedians can become addicted to the sound of laughter and while it is nice to get top TV ratings and see your DVD sales rocket, nothing beats the sound of a packed house hanging on your every punchline. This might also be why French and Saunders have also just announced that they are dragging themselves out on the road in 2008.

For Whitehouse, Higson and co, this is a chance to get the kind of fix that books and radio shows just can't offer. When you've created comedy legends such as the "Suit You" tailors or Ted and Ralph, one can understand that you don't want them to go gentle into that good night. November? That month I'll be mostly seeing shows by men and women who can't resist another moment of showing off in the limelight.

Good news for Penelope Keith lovers and there are lots of us out there. The BBC is rumoured to be planning a one-off Christmas revival of To The Manor Born. The hit series starred Keith as down-on-her-luck toff Audrey fforbes-Hamilton and dashing Peter Bowles as nouveau riche businessman Richard De Vere. The last episode of this odd couple romance went out way back in 1981, so it is best to strike now before licence payers' money has to be splashed out on zimmer frames for the cast.

If the BBC is expecting a ratings smash, however, I hope that they have studied their history. TTMB regularly got ratings of around 20 million and one episode is the joint 14th highest-watched programme. When Audrey and Richard finally held hands 23.9 million viewers tuned in – more than watched England lose to Argentina in the 1998 World Cup.

TTMB was good, but was it that good? Of course, times were different then. We should all know that there were only three channels in the late seventies, but what is less well-known is that when TTMB first went out in the autumn of 1979 there were actually only two. An ITV strike meant that the commercial channel was off the air from August to October, leaving the way clear for TTMB to build up a huge, loyal following which stayed when ITV reappeared. Penelope Keith obviously had a following after her success as uber-snob Margo in The Good Life, but without that autumn of discontent it would probably not have done half as well as it did. Maybe if ITV, C4 and Five down tools, the internet implodes, Sky's satellite crashes and Blockbuster shuts up shop TTMB might repeat its success.

And talking of retro-comedy, a forthcoming C4 sketch show pilot apparently features a reversal of the old racist Love They Neighbour set-up. This time a couple of black yuppies (one played by Big Brother's Derek Laud) find themselves living next door to a pair of Jade Goody-style chavs. Sounds a lots like Goodness Gracious Me's 'Going For An English' classic sketch with a side order of class snobbery thrown in for good measure. But as To The Manor Born's success proved, us Brits love nothing more than a splash of snobbery.

So Chris Langham has finally been sentenced to ten months in prison for downloading child pornography. But what do I do with my shelf of Chris Langham DVDs? Do I bin them? Hide them away? Or just behave as if his private life, however sick, has no bearing on his work. It has been much discussed but I'm still no clearer. Over the weekend I considered other cases of talented artists falling from grace. Painter Caravaggio was said to be a murderer but his works are still exhibited and admired. According to recent revelations, pioneering artist Eric Gill had incestuous relationships with other members of his family (and his dog) but to the best of my knowledge the BBC has not removed his ornate sculptures from outside Broadcasting House. But Langham's crimes feel more horrendous. Caravaggio was a long time ago, Gill did not involve pre-teen innocent children. Gary Glitter doesn't get much airplay these days, but then that is no great loss to art and culture.

At the Edinburgh Festival this summer in the Assembly Rooms, sponsors Freemantle Media had put up a wall of fame, with a list of great comedians involved in their company. Langham's name remained up there even after he was found guilty. Will it be up on the wall if it re-appears next year?

Somehow I can't see the BBC repeating his award-winning sitcom The Thick Of It in the immediate future. Or the psychiatry sitcom Help, which Langham referred to in court when he said he downloaded child porn as part of his research. But Langham was also briefly in Life Of Brian – will his scenes be edited out? I doubt it. On the other hand, he was also in The Muppets. The thought of watching Langham in a programme with a large young audience is particularly unpleasant. And somehow the fact that he was a comedian and not, say, a painter, makes things even more difficult. You could possibly stand back and appreciate the work of someone skilled with a brush while knowing what they may have done when they put the brush down. But with Langham's work one is expected to laugh - how can one laugh when one is thinking of the distinctly unfunny things the star did in his down-time?

As for my Langham DVD collection, I don't suppose I'll be binning it, but I don't suppose I'll be watching it for a while, but what do other people think? Are there cases where heinous crimes should not cast a shadow over a work of art? Maybe that would be a case in the past, but somehow I feel that in this age of uber-celebrity-obession things have changed. If we want to know all about our icons offstage as well as on, the two are always going to be inextricably linked.

You can't move for awards these days. The Mercury is behind us, The Booker is in front of us. And this week Loaded magazine unveiled the nominations for its annual LAFTA Awards, the winners to be announced on October 4th. I won't dissect the entire phone directory-sized list, instead I'll just pull a bemused face and ask what certain names are doing there.

Posh and Becks, for instance, are up for Best Double Act against the likes of Mitchell and Webb and Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. Surely, surely, surely some mistake. There is a world of difference between being a laughing stock and making people laugh. Likewise Fern Britton and Eamonn Holmes are nominated for Funniest TV Personality. Has the overexcitable Britton or the overweight Irishman ever said anything comical in their lives? They make Chris Moyles (up for Funniest Radio Show, which will surely go to BBC6 wit du jour Stephen Merchant seem like Oscar Wilde.

The trouble with comedy awards is the definition of comedy. This blurring of lines between humour and light entertainment has been a problem for a while now, with The X Factor getting shortlisted for a British Comedy Award in 2005 when it has as much to do with comedy as Pot Noodle has to do with Pol Pot. One can imagine stand-ups around the country up in arms and moaning about light entertainers coming over 'ere and taking our gongs.

Ultimately the LAFTAS is little to do with acknowledging the people that make us laugh and everything to do with getting the shadow-of-its-former-self magazine some desperately needed coverage. Whack a few lowbrow names on your list and if a couple of them pitch up there is more chance of getting some juicy tabloid coverage. David Gest and Peter Andre are also in the running and I can almost hear them instructing their liveried flunkies to iron their smartest trousers as I write.

I suppose in a line-up this long they are bound to get a few things right by the law of averages. Ricky Gervais is present of course, and we can't knock Russell Brand's three nominations. Yet in a list that goes on forever, there is surely one prize missing - the prize for Best Quotes About Prizes. That should go to Maureen Lipman who recently said "Awards are like piles. Sooner or later every bum gets one."