This year's Big Fat Quiz Of The Year came in for some criticism recently when the line-up of the Boxing Day edition was announced. Host Jimmy Carr and panellists James Acaster, Richard Ayoade,  Joe Lycett, David Mitchell are joined by two women – Maya Jama and  Stacey Solomon – but there are no actual female comedians answering questions. WTF went social media.

This cock-up – sorry, that's probably not the right phrase – showed that while there have been some great strides forward in representation of women on panel shows in recent years there is still work to be done. Nobody meant any criticism of Solomon or Jama but there are so many fantastic female stand-ups around at the moment it is hard to see how the programme could have overlooked them for this edition.

Anyway, moving on from this issue for a moment but not forgetting it, the programme promises its usual blend of irreverent quizzing and japery. Charles Dance and Jon Snow will be chipping in and the pupils from Mitchell Brook Primary School will be acting out news events of 2020 for the panel to identify. I can't think for the life of me what news events there have been this year, but C4 has offered some reminders: 

"To which song did Donald Trump show off his dance moves this year? What unique present did Kanye give Kim for her birthday? What term was coined to sum up Harry and Meghan's move Stateside? And what did Vogue describe as being 2020's 'most erotically charged prop'?

"All of these questions and many more will be answered in the biggest, fattest quiz of the year. Question master Jimmy Carr is joined by a panel of celebrity quizzers as they compete to find out who remembers the most about the past 12 months."

And while the panel could have had more female comedians on it this is a chance to enjoy the genius that is James Acaster, who is always excellent on any programme he appears on, from Taskmaster to Would I Lie To You? David Mitchell is an old hand at this sort of show and Joe Lycett's distinctive brand of waspish fun is always good value. As for Richard Ayoade, I haven't seen him on the box for a while apart from hosting Celebrity Crystal Maze, but I did see him walking down the road near me in south London recently - from a distance of course.

And it is worth adding that Maya Jama and Stacey Solomon, while not comedians, are entertaining too, even if Jama is getting so ubiquitous she is in danger of appearing more on the box than Romesh Ranganathan and the Channel 4 ident combined.

There will also be a Big Fat Quiz Of Everything in January with a line-up that goes some way to redressing the balance, featuring Rob Beckett, Roisin Conaty, Nish Kumar, Katherine Ryan, Oti Mabuse and Rob Brydon. 

Big Fat Quiz Of The Year, C4, Boxing Day, 9.05pm

Picture: C4