Andy Hamilton (I)

With It's Only A Theory, BBC4 seem to have taken the unusual step of commissioning a Radio 4 comedy before it's even had a 6.30pm slot. Devised by the reliable Andy Hamilton, whose career takes in Shelley, Not The Nine O'Clock News, Drop The Dead Donkey, Armstrong And Miller and Outnumbered, it sees scientific experts bring their hypotheses to the studio where they are subjected to an interrogation by Hamilton, his regular sidekick, panel-show favourite Reginald D Hunter and a special guest, this week being the blokey Clare Balding. Like most of those Radio 4 shows it is amusing rather than funny and the best lines in this ep are delivered by ageing expert Aubrey De Grey, but it is nonetheless well worth a look.

Taking the Flak (BBC2), which competes for the same airtime, begins promisingly enough. Harry, the local stringer in Karibu, is doing a piece to camera: "This ancient country, 38 times the size of Wales, is in desperate need." (Any plague-spot of indeterminate location is always compared to Wales. Wales is not quite sure how to take this.) Over his shoulder, the cheerful life of Karibu pursued the even tenor of its way.

At this point the BBC's visiting firemen arrived, to cover the crisis, led by Martin Jarvis (playing, lets face it, John Simpson), and it all went to hell in a handcart. (Perhaps Susie Dent can explain the handcart.) The plot was chaotic. The locals were not always intelligible. And I am very sorry for the woman from the World Service who had to mime incessant diarrhoea. You wonder if the trip to Kenya was worth the shilling, as some of the funniest scenes were back at the BBC where Nigel (Mackenzie Crook) was holding the fort with minimal fortitude ("The editor of the six is literally foaming at the mouth. He bit a picture researcher").

Andy Hamilton was asked recently why he stopped writing Drop the Dead Donkey, the granddaddy of this genre, and he said you couldn't keep up. Damien Day - GlobeLink's shameless star reporter - putting a teddy bear on a bombed building would be considered quite mild now.

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.

A complaint often levelled at television is that there are far too many repeats slotted into the schedules, which can be a highly valid gripe. But when the repeat in question is another go for Outnumbered series two (which gained decent ratings on its previous Saturday showing), we'll let it go. Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin's heavily improvised comedy is a constant delight as Hugh Dennis and Claire Skinner play the average couple with three kids - and it's the kids that steal the show every time. In this first episode, Pete and Sue shepherd their brood to a family wedding - with predictably chaotic results. Highly recommended.

Andy Hamilton and Reginald D Hunter claim It's Only A Theory

Filming has finished on It's Only A Theory, an eight x 30-minute entertainment programme for BBC Four that sees highly-qualified professionals and experts submitting their theories about life, the universe and everything for examination by a panel of two comedians and a guest celebrity.

Andy Hamilton & Guy Jenkin Interview

The Independent meets Andy Hamilton & Guy Jenkin. If a show has ever made you laugh, these two probably wrote the script. They gave us a rare interview for Red Nose Day, which this year includes an episode of their hit comedy Outnumbered.

Thank heaven for Andy Hamilton's hellish comedy, back on form for its latest series. Hell - where Liberace is forced to share a pit with the Ayatollah Khomeini and where innovative bankers get extra liquidity injected into their systems via a rather nasty route - is still overcrowded. And if that isn't enough to get Satan aerated, then the arrival of man's best friend throws him completely. What the hell is going on when dogs are allowed in? While others may moan that the original idea has run out of steam, I beg to differ. The devil still has the best lines.

Andy Hamilton's glorious radio comedy returns for a new series. It may be bad luck for Hamilton's bank account that it's unlikely to transfer to TV (too expensive, too topical, too funny) but it's good news for listeners who discover tonight how many bankers are now in Hell, what to do with a dog that's suddenly turned up there and why God appears to be on a gap year. Hamilton, as ever, plays Satan, attended by lesser devils Scumspawn and Thomas (Robert Duncan and Jimmy Mulville). Annette Crosbie plays Satan's crisply academic biographer.

I've never quite warmed to Andy Hamilton's comedy about Satan and his minions, but there's no doubt it's phenomenanally popular - hence its return for another series.

The best sitcom currently on TV has to be Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin's Outnumbered, which succeeds in being both charming and funny in equal measure.

Hugh Dennis and Clare Skinner star as the parents to three young children. That's about it, concept wise, and the plotlines are equally uncluttered. This week the family were delayed at a foreign airport and pass the time by playing games, crashing luggage trolleys, teasing police dogs, terrorising a passenger on crutches and trying to explain to a four year old child why religious fanatics might want to blow their plane up.

Apparently much of the younger cast members' dialogue is semi improvised, which accounts for the stunningly spontaneous performances and some unexpectedly bizarre lines. For the grown ups there is a terrific script to deliver, packed with intelligence, wit, subtlety and imagination. Dennis and Skinner make the most of it, and also manage to generate considerable screen chemistry that holds the whole show together.