On Friday Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo celebrate 10 years of film reviews on BBC Five Live with an anniversary show broadcast from the Phoenix in Finchley. A one-screen arthouse cinema that ignores blockbusters and favours coffee and cake over Coke and popcorn and where the punters turn off their mobiles before taking their seats (as opposed to texting their thoughts throughout the movie) the Phoenix is a fitting venue for the party. It's also the cinema where Kermode spent much of his youth – regular listeners may even know his favoured seat. Indeed it is this kind of biographical detail and the show's much repeated in-jokes (the hellos to Jason Isaacs, Stephen Fry and members of various English folk groups – for reasons long forgotten) that has made the pair's show together such a hit in our era of podcasting and listening again.

The duo have actually been together as broadcaster and reviewer a lot longer than a decade – Kermode was resident film reviewer on Mayo's show at Radio One before sagely recognising he was too old for the station. Five years later, when Mayo swapped pop for news and sport, his first request was to be reunited with his grumpy Exorcist-worshipping chum. In recent times their partnership has even survived Mayo's return to pop (albeit of a more mature variety) on Radio 2, with the DJ returning to the Five Live mothership each Friday afternoon exclusively to work with Kermode and keep their brand alive.

Over the years I've gone from being charmed to being irritated to only just tolerating their mock-bickering, grammatical pedantry and self referencing. The little husband-and-wife spats began as a technique for Mayo to soften Kermode's pompous film buffery but in the past couple of years it's all become a little overdone. Never mind, as there are plenty of other things to enjoy about their partnership – not least Kermode's giant hands, his astounding ignorance of anything that happens beyond the walls of the cinema (is it really possible to have no idea of Cheryl Cole's existence?) and his unswerving loyalty, much to Mayo's annoyance, to Dougal and the Blue Cat.

The pair are also to be congratulated for their Cinema Code of Conduct campaign as well as their regular belittling of 3D, anything starring Danny Dyer or Jason Statham and the life and works of the director McG. Most of all though Kermode remains a brilliantly entertaining and unpredictable reviewer who, despite the calming influence of Mayo, always speaks his mind, often against the tide of popular opinion. Several weeks ago I was anticipating a typical Kermodian (how many broadcasters get that accolade?) rant at Kenneth Branagh's Thor but he ended up liking it.

Conversely he appeared to be one of the few critics in the country who didn't get Attack The Block (which led to a strangely prickly interview with director Joe Cornish). Three of his reviews stick in my mind – a brilliant tirade against Sex And The City 2, his impression of Gwyneth Paltrow conversing with Robert Downey Jnr in Iron Man and best of all his horrified realisation that he was actually enjoying Mamma Mia. For all the jokes, audience participation and trivia it's the reviews that keep me coming back – although often it feels that they're the part of the show that gets squeezed.

What do you think? Has the pair's radio marriage lost its glow or will you be toasting their anniversary in the hope of 10 more years of "wittertainment"?