Benji Wilson

Whose Line is it Anyway? interview

As the Nineties TV hit storms the West End, host Clive Anderson and creator Dan Patterson tell Benji Wilson the secret of its success.

Why are so many men having breakdowns in sitcoms?

From Peep Show to Man Down, which returned last night, sitcoms are obsessed with middle-aged men whose lives are falling apart. It's a sign of the times.

SunTrap, BBC One, review: 'tragic'

As you went about your business this morning, did you notice the people shuffling around looking bereft and hollow-cheeked? They may have been muttering "why?" or perhaps "how?", quite possibly slamming their heads into doorposts or stamping on their own feet. These people will come to be known as "The people who watched SunTrap last night", and I am one of them.

Episodes, the comedy in which Matt LeBlanc plays Matt LeBlanc in a TV show about making a TV show, began its fourth series this week. Television has been making shows about making shows for many years, with mixed success. The problem, as with actors talking about acting, is that people at home tend not to consider television to be quite as important as the people who make it. Most of us worry more about running out of rinse aid.

Episodes adds another layer of meta by having Stephen Mangan and Tamsin Greig playing two British screenwriters trying to make sense of the American way of making a TV show. The joke has evolved over four years to the point where by now they all know that the sitcom they are making is godawful, and yet for reasons to do with executive-level willy-waving the show goes on. Episodes is by no means godawful - Mangan and Greig are two of our very best comic performers - but it does sail a little close to the wind in telling a story about a sitcom that's outstayed its welcome.

The problem is that Episodes has got a little too cosy. When it began "Matt LeBlanc" was about as likeable as Eugene Terre'Blanche, and the jokes at his expense had teeth. But four series in, that near-the-knuckle humour has lost its bite. LeBlanc has become essentially a nice guy with a few quirks. The show isn't roasting him, as they like to say in America. It's barely even searing him - in fact, his appearance starts to look like the kind of self-deprecation that's actually a little affected - it's the same borderline smugness you sometimes sense is the driving force behind W1A.

Peter Kay's Car Share, a new comedy, restored my faith in television's ability to be something more than just a cattle prod to sell stuff. Kay plays John, a supermarket worker who has been enrolled in his work's car share scheme. It means that twice a day he has to spend 15 minutes or so, there and back, in the company of Kayleigh (Sian Gibson), a virtual stranger. The whole thing takes place in the car, consisting of their chit-chat, the imbecilic radio ads and some wonderful/abhorrent Nineties music (depending on your view of Nineties music).

All six episodes of Car Share went up on iPlayer simultaneously, yet this is one of those shows where a hearty binge might not be the best way to view it. It's one of those comedies like Nurse or Getting On that are more impressionistic than appointment to view. They make no effort to stop you switching off. They're just companionable and somewhere between gently tickling and really funny.

Great sitcom is about people who are trapped and you can't be more trapped than in a metal box, with someone you don't really know strapped in next to you. Of course, it also requires a script as tight as a gnat's whoopsie, as well as sharp performances. Car Share, thus far, has both.

Whether or not this can be sustained over a series we shall see. Episode one has already mined the car radio and its adverts for humour, as well as utilising a fantasy sequence to get us out of the capsule. But in a week in which several new television shows this week were clichéd or overwrought, Kay's simple new comedy felt both current and bold.

W1A's Clarkson episode was clever and funny

If the BBC is always in damage limitation mode then W1A is something like a controlled burn to halt a forest fire.

Inside No. 9, BBC Two, review: 'sadly beautiful'

I haven't been a fan of all of them - often they're too arch for their own good. But last night Inside No. 9 pitched for something deeper - genuine poignancy - and in just half an hour it achieved it.

You're Back in the Room: something close to delirium

Phillip Schofield's You're Back In The Room is significantly funnier than anything else on TV.

Nina Conti: Clowning Around (BBC Four) started out as a standard Minor Celebrity Sets Arbitrary Goal film (Conti wanted to learn to be a clown to help kids in hospital) but ended up descending into the depths of her own self-doubt. Her clown persona made children cry, not laugh, and as she struggled to find the "inner clown" that her many teachers insisted all of us possess, the charity for whom she was working decided that clowning itself should be banned (the donors found clowns off-putting). Conti was left questioning everything - "Nina's gone mental," said monkey, on Conti's behalf.

It was an unusual, awkward film, if only because so few things on TV are prepared to admit that the much-hallowed "journey" we're all supposed to be on often leads to failure. Conti's attempts to become a clown petered out and she gave up - it ended with her wearing a wetsuit, flippers and a clown nose, haranguing passers-by on London Bridge in a mildly alarming way. Maybe that's what she'd concluded clowning meant.

One of her fellow clowns had another definition: "A clown is who we'd all want to be if we stopped worrying about looking like idiots."

Reviews: When did comedy get so sad?

Benji Wilson reviews the week in TV, including Nurse (Tuesday, BBC Two), In and Out of the Kitchen (Wednesday, BBC Four) and Bluestone 42 (Monday, BBC Three).