Alison Graham

There are some real loud laughs to be had from Getting On, but they aren't comfortable, as this is a black, black comedy set in one of the more decrepit outposts of the NHS. Co-writers and stars Jo Brand, Joanna Scanlan and Vicki Pepperdine are the hopelessly incompetent staff of a pitiful geriatric ward. Brand and Scanlan are nurses rendered almost immobile by their own indolence and stupidity, while Pepperdine is a doctor who can't see her way past politically correct, coy euphemisms, as in "the deceased party" for "dead woman".

Getting On bears the fingerprints of The Thick of It, and not just because Peter Capaldi directs. It has the same ruthlessly naturalistic, documentary feel as its mighty predecessor and leaves the same lingering feeling that beneath the humour there's something very serious going on.

Michael McIntyre bounds around the stage like an overexcited circus ringmaster when his roadshow reaches Belfast. He's remorselessly cheerful (a good thing in a comedian) and relentlessly good-natured as he has gentle fun with audience member Christine Bleakley about the incongruities of The One Show ("I saw Andrew Lloyd Webber talking about knife crime"). And redoubtable Olympic gold-medallist Dame Mary Peters gamely plays along when McIntyre does far from dextrous impressions of her winning sports. But really he's little more than master of ceremonies, this week introducing Jeff Green, who gets some mileage out of being newly married and his wife's love of cushions, a chipper Kerry Godliman, who wonders why baby clothes have pockets, and headliner Patrick Kielty, whose best bit is a funny Facebook version of the Middle East conflict.

Radio Times Review

Let's not waste any time, let's shoot a poisoned arrow straight through the heart of Personal Affairs, BBC3's supposed comic drama about a clutch of secretaries in a City of London bank. It is inexplicably bad.

The League of Gentlemen's Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton join forces once more as writers and stars of this weird, black comic drama...and at this point it would be handy to give a plot precis but, frankly, I have no idea what's going on. A handful of apparently unlinked, disparate people in different parts of the country are sent wax-sealed letters bearing the words "I know what you did". But what did they do? No idea, though the recipients include a barmy midwife obsessed by the doll from her childbirth classes (Dawn French), a telekinetic dwarf, and a wildly inappropriate children's entertainer, Mr Jelly (Shearsmith) - a cross between the evil clown from Stephen King's It and The League of Gentlemen's infamous creation, Papa Lazarou. There are some funny bits, the gothic atmosphere is very Royston Vasey-ish, and the cast is stellar, but I suspect Psychoville will take a wee while to get going properly.

The four female ex-cons are still hiding in the pretty Scottish village of Hope Springs, although, after the disastrous fire at the hotel, it looks like they'll have to change their escape plans. Frankly, they're such a witless quartet I'm surprised any of them is capable of walking down a flight of stairs without doing something silly and girly. In fact, a nasty part of me hopes Ellie's evil husband's hitman gets to Scotland quickly to finish off the lot of them. There are another six episodes to go, so this would seem unlikely.

Outnumbered lost out to The IT Crowd at the Baftas this year, which wasn't just baffling it was also a real pity, because Guy Jenkin and Andy Hamilton's winning portrayal of the minor absurdities of family life, and its brilliant, scene-stealing child actors, deserve proper recognition. In a repeat of series two's first episode, the family, including hapless mum and dad Sue and Pete (Claire Skinner and Hugh Dennis), is off to a wedding. As always they hover perilously close to being late as violence-obsessed Ben (Daniel Roche) debates if hitting someone who is attacking you with a shovel would be OK, limpid-eyed Karen (Ramona Marquez) locks herself in the bathroom and Jake (Tyger Drew-Honey) worries. It's achingly funny and packed with lovely moments, including Karen's remorseless quizzing of the increasingly unnerved bride, that always end with the grown-ups being outmanoeuvered.

David Mitchell and Robert Webb are probably more famous for the work that they do apart than for their shows as a comedy duo, now that Mitchell is the brilliantly witty guest of choice for edgily satirical panel shows, and Webb became a YouTube darling with his winning turn on Let's Dance for Comic Relief. They are terrific in Peep Show, but That Mitchell and Webb Look just doesn't hit the mark, probably because it's not very funny. Don't get me wrong, there are a few mild chortles - I liked Webb's filthy Queen Victoria at a tree planting - but there's nothing here that will have anyone gasping for oxygen as they fall, laughing helplessly, from the sofa.

If anyone cares to run a "most irritating TV character of the year" competition I guarantee that Alice Chaplin will be near the top, if not the outright winner. Alice (a twitchy Shirley Henderson) is a middle-class mum who passes herself off as her own 11-year-old daughter to sit a posh public school's entrance exam. We are meant to feel a bit sorry for Alice, I think, because she's goaded to going to such ridiculous lengths by the other insufferably pushy and smug mums on her gated housing estate. But, blimey, she's annoying. And the bit where she dresses as a teenage girl in front of her very interested husband is just a wee bit creepy. Still, if you like jokes about the poorness of comprehensive schools and organic lollies and you enjoy seeing middle-class parents behaving like idiots, this adaptation of John O'Farrell's novel will be right up your suburban street.

When I tell you Hope Springs comes from the same stable as Bad Girls and Footballers' Wives, you'll know it isn't a searing human drama where finely-etched characters battle existential angst. No, it's a cheerful piece of nonsense featuring a cockernee-sounding Alex Kingston as the head of a band of female ex-cons whose final job goes pear-shaped (sorry, I can't help myself) and who hide out in the Highland hamlet Hope Springs. It's your typical fish-out-of-water fare as the silliest of the women screams in terror at a motionless sheep and the Kingston character exchanges moody glances with the presentable local policeman (Paul Higgins). If you need to know more, let me tell you that in Hope Springs, a man performing the kiss of life on a woman is seen as a comedy romantic gesture.

Anyone who enjoyed Live at the Apollo will be the natural audience for this show fronted by the dangerously ubiquitous Michael McIntyre. I like him a lot, but I'm starting to feel that he's on everything. He's good value, though, and knows how to work an audience. Here, he fills in between comparatively unknown stand-ups, with the exception of Mark Watson, with whom Radio 4 listeners might be familiar. It's a good show - the first is from Edinburgh; I particularly liked droll Canadian Stewart Francis and his relentless one-liners, and the laconic Watson. But the cheerfully exhausting Rhod Gilbert probably takes the prize with a daft story about a flight to Dublin: "I was going abroad, I'm Welsh, I bought shorts..."