I’ve been having a running debate with my brother over my love of The Review Show. He is of the opinion that it is pretentious, boring and altogether interminable. I agree entirely, but in a perverse way I think that it’s exactly the kind of thing BBC2 should be devoting fifty minutes of its schedule too.

Admittedly I have been a keen follower of the programme throughout its various forms, and have especially fond memories of Tom Paulin being very dour and Northern Irish on the original Late Review chaired by Mark Lawson. My interest dipped slightly when it became Newsnight Review and seemed like a kind of half arsed, tacked on addition to Newnight’s current affairs agenda. Thankfully the powers that be have changed up yet again and retitled the programme The Review Show, with Kirsty Wark and Martha Karney presenting.

One of the main differences between The Review Show and its predecessors is that it is now centred around a single theme like English identity or feminism in the post modern era, giving it a greater sense of coherence and a tool by which to reign in the previous scatter shot approach to arts and culture.

Let’s be honest, The Review Show is so middle class that it probably does the school run in one of those awful turquoise people carriers whilst making hummus with fairtrade chickpeas. But is that really such a bad thing? I personally enjoy having a few bottles of wine and talking with friends about music, films and art. If that makes me middle class then guilty as charged. And to be frank I think it’s more valid to wallow in bourgeois naval gazing than to engage in the kind of inter-class rubber necking on display in programmes like The Jeremy Kyle Show or Shameless.

Already the new and improved Review Show has had some classic moments; Bonnie Greer witheringly telling academic bossy boots Sarah Churchill that she was ‘bored’ of talking about race in America, a hilarious few minutes of Toby Young ripping the proverbial out of Girl With a One Track Mind author Zoe Margolis, and one of the blokes from Hot Chip extolling the virtues of American song and dance high school drama Glee.

What does Paul Morley make of some new show on at The Barbican? Is Martin Amis a misogynist? Does anyone really care? Not really, but as long as a group of haughty intellectuals get together once a week to talk bollocks about stuff no one really gives a shit about I’ll be there with bells on.