Alison Graham

Radio Times review

This episode strikes a different note from that we've come to expect from Rev; it's not delightful at all, it's sad and there's a bleakness to vicar Adam's life now that hovers on the upsetting.

But that's probably because Tom Hollander does such a wonderful job of making us care about Adam, a man who is all too human and fallible. The fallout from his indiscretion is instant and powerful as he faces the unwavering and angry gaze of his beloved Alex (Olivia Colman). Just when everything seems hopeless and Adam's world is about to crumble, a new member of the congregation is fortuitously on hand to help out.

Radio Times review

Hapless vicar Adam's hopes of rescuing the increasingly decrepit St Saviour's from imminent closure are given a boost when a Turner Prize-winning artist asks if he can unveil a new installation in the building. And he's prepared to make a substantial donation to the emergency fund...

It's good news, of course, but Adam being Adam (Tom Hollander, who also wrote the episode), he has to seek out new and inventive ways of sabotaging his professional and even his personal life, even when things seem to be going well.

He's adorable, of course, but sometimes you want to give him a jolly good shaking, particularly when he does something unforgivable and out of character, something that could jeopardise his relationship with wife Alex (Olivia Colman).

Radio Times review

I had some sympathy with those who thought 2010's first series of The Trip was too self-referential and up itself. They'll probably think the same of this second series, where Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan play versions of themselves pootling through Italy dining in high-end restaurants. None of this alters the fact that it's helplessly, hilariously funny.

Both men are obviously a bit older and a bit more aware of the passage of time. Coogan's worried that his career might be hitting the doldrums and that he doesn't have his old pulling-power now that women see him as middle-aged.

He and Brydon have a good-naturedly barbed friendship as they chat amicably over dinner, kicking around each other's insecurities. The best bits are their competitive impressions - Brydon doing a B&Q advert voiceover as Tom Hardy's Batman villain Bane is a hoot.

Radio Times review

An approach from Archdeacon Robert is like being addressed by an urbane python, but the black-gloved cleric has a sensitive side. Yes, he delivers another dire warning to vicar Adam Smallbone about St Saviour's lack of funds. (Hugh Bonneville is back briefly as Roland Wise, the Dale Carnegie-like motivational cleric.) But when rumour spreads that Adam has conducted a gay wedding, maybe the Archdeacon (Simon McBurney) will exercise a little understanding.

With same-sex weddings now legal it's a timely story handled with humour (of course), compassion and without preachiness. Adam (Tom Hollander) is torn when two friends want a [forbidden] church ceremony. He agrees to say prayers for their union as long as there are no rings, confetti or any walking down the aisle...

Comedies don't have to make you laugh

Rev., W1A, The Office... My favourite comedies aren't all rib-ticklers, says Alison Graham.

Radio Times review

St Saviour's Church is under threat as we return to east London and the pastoral care of the Rev Adam Smallbone (Tom Hollander), who's now dad to a sweet baby daughter. As he changes nappies, the new Area Dean and Diocesan Secretary (Joanna Scanlan and Vicki Pepperdine) drop dark hints of closure.

There aren't any belly laughs in Rev., but that doesn't matter as there are plenty of smiles, because it's that rarity, a good-hearted sitcom without guile or meanness. Adam is a genial pragmatist (except when it comes to fixing the church's dangerously faulty wiring), devout, of course, but without any of that off-putting zeal. He wants to improve his community's grim children's playground and launches a fundraising campaign with the local imam (Fonejacker Kayvan Novak).

All of Rev's great characters are back, notably the terrifying Archdeacon (Simon McBurney) and the decrepit Colin (Steve Evets).

Radio Times review

Pramface's central couple have to be mismatched - it's at the heart of the "comedy" - but does Laura have to be quite so whiny and annoying and does Jamie, the father of her baby, have to be such a gormless man-child? He's an eager-to-please simpleton who is duped once again when a chancy painter and decorator recruits him to do some casual work. This involves Jamie removing his shirt and wearing revealing cut-off jeans. Poor Jamie, he's merely eye-candy for leering middle-aged ladies.

Passive-aggressive Laura, meanwhile, is stomping around her dad's flat as he undergoes a midlife crisis and starts dating a much younger woman.

Radio Times review

Stewart Lee is a stand-up who doesn't do stand-up. He doesn't tell gags; often he isn't very funny. Fellow comedians hate him - he's pleased with Lee Mack's description of him as a "cultural bully from the Oxbridge Mafia" and he's regularly denounced on Twitter as "fat" and "depressed-looking" and much, much worse.

So he's an acquired taste. I like him, though I don't know why, possibly because he's astute and clever. He takes the Twitter loathing and turns it around, pulping the social network site and its users as "a state surveillance agency staffed by gullible volunteers... it's the Stasi for the Angry Birds generation". If you don't laugh at that, then possibly this show isn't for you.

Radio Times review

BBC Three has always struck me as the most unlikely home for this soft-centred, blandly pleasing sitcom. It's not particularly sweary, its characters are inoffensive and it even flutters on the outskirts of twee, so it's hardly up there with Two Pints of Lager or Bad Education.

As we reach the third series young, accidental parents Jamie and Laura (Sean Michael Verey and Scarlett Alice Johnson), who conceived a baby after a misguided one-night stand, have a polite relationship for the sake of their little one.

But their parents are fractious and in chaos - Jamie's feckless dad has spent the family's money and they are evicted from their home, while Laura's high-flying mum (Anna Chancellor) is still in New York, communicating bad-temperedly via Skype with her estranged husband (Angus Deayton).

Radio Times review

Clarence and Connie's battleaxe of a sister, Charlotte, stalks the corridors of Blandings, terrorising her siblings and braying orders at the servants, just like she used to do when she lived in India with her military-man husband. She's played by Celia Imrie with her usual deft comic touch as she adds another fearsomely posh harridan to her CV.

Charlotte thinks Blandings is a shambles and decides she's going to move in permanently. Meanwhile, Charlotte's lisping wet blanket of a ward, Millicent, is mooning over Clarence's presentable young male secretary, Carmody. A plot involving pigs, kidnappings and laxatives of course doesn't bear close scrutiny. But that's not the point of Blandings, it's just a bit of silliness. Tinkety tonk!