Chris Harvey

Getting On, BBC Four, review

Chris Harvey reviews the first episode of a new series of the hospital comedy Getting On (BBC Four) starring Jo Brand

It's the end of an era, as the cork comes out of the bottle of Britain's longest-running sitcom for the last time. Roy Clarke's beloved tales of a group of hapless old men in a West Yorkshire village first appeared on our screens in 1973, but the show has gone on to carve a host of indelible characters, such as Bill Owen's Compo and Kathy Staff's Nora Batty, onto the television landscape. Tonight, Howard (Robert Fyfe) despairs of being allowed back into the marital home to retrieve his wedding suit.

Jo Brand stars as Nurse Kim Wilde in this very funny, improvised comedy set in a geriatric ward, where the main business is getting on with the daily round of bowel movements and hip problems. She's the junior member of a team that includes Sister Den Flixter and Dr Pippa Moore, played by Brand's co-writers Joanna Scanlan and Vicki Pepperdine. In episode one, they are about to be joined by a new male matron. The series has previously been shown on BBC Four, and has two Bafta nominations to its credit.

Ageing housemates Tom (Roger Lloyd Pack) and Roy (Clive Swift) continue to trade quick-fire gags in this old-fashioned sitcom. Tonight, Tom gets a surprise when Sally (Jane Asher) turns up asking to use the shower - "God has answered my mad prayer" - but before long she's moving in for the week, causing the men predictable grief.

The fourth series of Graham Linehan's sitcom about the otherworldly technical support team at Reynholm Industries comes to an end with a divorce fight between sleazy Denholm Reynholm (Matt Berry) and the wife he hasn't seen since she disappeared while washing the car. The ensuing courtroom battle features an appearance in the witness box from former employee Richmond (Noel Fielding) - now the founder of the business training enterprise "Goth 2 Boss".

Tom Hollander's Rev Adam Smallbone is contemplating the loneliness of the clerical calling in the latest episode of this sprightly comedy. He can't even make friends among his parishioners, he complains, because "I've got to be on at all times. I've got to be nice." A prospective groom provides a temporary escape from his isolation but the Rev's desire to please leads to a plan to provide "the smoky stuff" - burning incense - at his wedding ceremony. Enter Simon McBurney's high camp and very arch archdeacon, at the first whiff of "Latinate choreography".

Series nine of the panel show hosted by Dara Ó Briain continues to offer amusing satire on the week's events, although topicality appears to be less important than good jokes if the popularity of the recycled earlier series on digital channel Dave is anything to go by. Ó Briain will be joined as usual by stand-ups Andy Parsons, Russell Howard and bishop's son Hugh Dennis.

Fans of Father Ted and The Vicar of Dibley might recoil from the relatively gritty realism of this new six-part ecclesiastical sitcom. Tom Hollander stars as the Reverend Adam Smallbone, a country vicar who takes over an inner-city parish and finds himself tested by a very modern set of moral dilemmas. In episode one, it's the miracle of a good Ofsted report that fills his church with parents of little faith but a genuine fervour to get their children into the church school. When someone throws a bottle through the stained glass window causing £30,000 worth of damage, the Rev has a range of fund-raising ideas from a bring-and-buy sale to sitting on the church roof until someone pays for him to come down. "I think you might be up there for some considerable time," opines Simon McBurney's iPhone-equipped archdeacon. The Rev's best bet is a spot of horse trading with the local MP (Alexander Armstrong), which could bring in the cash in return for a school place for the politician's son. But ought a vicar to be a little more high-minded in how he goes about God's restoration work? Hollander previously donned clergyman's robes in 2005 to play Jane Austen's obsequious Mr Collins in Pride and Prejudice, but he's much more of a baffled everyman here. The script could use a little of Austen's light touch, though. Do vicar's wives really talk about "bashing the bishop"?