Alice Lowe

Video: World exclusive trailer for Sightseers

Watch the trailer for the new film from Ben Wheatley, director of Down Terrace and Kill List, who returns with another black comedy. Chris (Steve Oram) is treating his girlfriend, Tina (Alice Lowe) to a caravan tour of the British countryside. It's their dream short break, until other holiday-makers start to jangle Chris's nerves...

Although the pilot was a BBC affair, this new comedy series arrives on Sky. Created by and starring comedians/music video directors Chris Bran and Justin Chubb, it's set on the isolated fictional isle of Jinsy. It's all about silly situations and funny wordplay, more like The Goons and Stanley Unwin than Little Britain. Its good supporting cast includes Alice Lowe (Darkplace), Harry Hill and even David Tennant.

The one we're really looking forward to is the Horrible Histories Christmas Special, featuring the likes of Simon Farnaby and Alice Lowe. Here be sketches about real-life oddities such as "Roland the Farter", a jester employed by King Henry II on Christmas day to maketh a noyse like a duck from his bottom parts.

An ill-advised comedy sketch show pilot that tries to spoof the unspoofable - the shock doc. When factual programmes like The Girl with Eight Limbs are already being shown, it's hard for the show's creator, Alice Lowe, whose credits include Garth Marenghi's Darkplace and E4's Beehive, to come up with anything weird enough to amuse. So sketches like The Woman Who Lived in Hair, while well executed, just aren't funny and go on too long. Not so much an opportunity missed as one that wasn't really there.

We were rather taken with this spoof documentary pilot, which was written by and stars Alice Lowe off Garth Marenghi's Darkplace and The Mighty Boosh. Skits from the collection of tragic true-life stories include The Man Who Has a Thousand Wives and a woman whose life has been ruined by the thought of bumping into Boy George.

New face of female comedy

Alice Lowe's sharp comedy features in all the best shows, but don't compare her with Catherine Tate.

Lowe and behold!

A Q&A with LifeSpam star Alice Lowe.

The ladies behind this new all-girl sketch show - Alice Lowe, Sarah Kendall, Barunka O'Shaughnessy and Clare Thomson - have earned their stripes around some of the best: their comedy CVs include shows with Mitchell and Webb, Steve Coogan and the Little Britain boys. Here they extrapolate events from pop culture - the girls scallywag about as four Russell Brands and there's a what-they'd-really-say take on Sex and the City. They then add in everyday moments with a surreal veneer - should you go on a date dressed as a duck?, etc. A few bits of nostalgia and poignancy may raise smiles, but Beehive is otherwise a punchline-free zone.

Stinging Criticism

Sarah Kendall, Alice Lowe, Barunka O'Shaughnessy and Clare Thomson are decent performers, but the writing lacks the subtlety and ­characterisation necessary to draw in the audience.