Christopher Stevens

Miranda Hart's clumsy, excitable persona with her foghorn laugh is a welcome antidote to the current convention that all women are superior beings. But since quitting Call The Midwife and ending her self-titled sitcom, her TV appearances have been hit-and-miss.

She shone as the compere of the Royal Variety Performance. But in Miranda Does Christmas (C4), a one-off chatshow with Prue Leith, Susan Calman and David Tennant, she was all over the place -- and several days too late.

We had Christmas quizzes, and banter about favourite carols, and every guest was treated to a silly gift. Prue got a painting by a David Hockney (not the artist, just a bloke with the same name). David got a Doctor Who doll.

A choir delivered a medley of Christmas Number Ones, and Miranda led everyone in a conga. 'Such fun,' she shrieked. No, it wasn't. It was the TV equivalent of a three-day-old turkey sandwich.

Why Just a Minute hides a far more ruthless reality

Just A Minute has become one of the nation's most beloved radio shows -- but it began as a classroom humiliation, inflicted on daydreamers by a history teacher at Sherborne School in the Thirties.

The Likely Lads forty-year feud

Of all the memorable TV sitcom theme songs over the years, it was the most melancholy, its words the most haunting: 'Oh, what happened to you, whatever happened to me? What became of the people we used to be?' Rodney Bewes, one half of the hit BBC show Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads, who died yesterday aged 79, asked himself those questions every day of his life for 40 years. His acclaimed double act with co-star James Bolam had ended in an acrimonious telephone call in 1976, after an ill-judged joke sparked an almighty row between them.

Motherland review: being a parent is a laughing matter

Motherland (BBC2) is a comedy that captures those moments of parental misery and magnifies them.

Man Down (C4), the sitcom starring and written by Greg Davies, is steeped in the history of TV comedy.

The trouble is, it tries to pay homage to every genre -- and the result is a slapdash jumble that can't decide where to earn its laughs.

Greg plays a useless slob of an ex-teacher called Dan, a 50-year-old who lives like a drunken student. It's a tribute to The Young Ones: in the first series, Rik Mayall played his dad.

But some of the jokes belong in Terry And June. Surveying the residents of his mother's retirement home, Dan sighed: 'They all moan about Marks & Spencer, but they won't buy their blouses anywhere else.'

Sometimes, Greg tries to ape Tony Hancock in his writing. One line, about having 'callouses the size of marrowfat peas', was a deliberate echo of Hancock's classic complaint: 'I've got toes like globe artichokes!'

Man Down needs to decide what sort of sitcom it really is. In fact, it needs to grow up a bit.

Porridge revival is as thin as cold greul

Kevin Bishop does a good job as Nigel Fletcher, grandson of the original Fletch, immortalised by Ronnie Barker. He makes the Fletch trademarks -- the eye-roll, the sideways grimace -- look like family traits. But the whole production feels as fake as a glass diamond. One look tells you this isn't the real thing.

All the jokes in Zapped, this formulaic farce have been done decades ago and much better by the late Sir Terry Pratchett in his Discworld novels.

Mind you, Sir Terry's imagination was so fecund that he didn't leave much space for his successors.

James Buckley plays an inept office worker who ends up in a world of swords and sorcery, under the drunken protection of a useless wizard (Paul Kaye).

Beset by fake soothsayers, devious politicians and thuggish city guards, he's dismayed to discover that even the magic doesn't work properly.

Fantasy sitcom has been done brilliantly by the live- action puppet series Yonderland, over on Sky. Zapped simply feels derivative.

On the other hand, it does feature doltish coppers with dainty wings called Fairies and wizards with Jethro Tull beards.

That's got to be worth a titter. Just don't expect too many laughs and you won't be disappointed.

The Baby Boomers' Guide to Growing Old review

Su Pollard's voiceover did try to prepare us. 'Warning!' she growled at the outset of The Baby Boomer's Guide To Getting Old (More4). 'This programme contains old people talking about sex. Get over it!' And she wasn't kidding. Honestly, you'd think the over-70s never think about anything else.

The script was mannered and dirty-mouthed, though the lines came so fast that there were bound to be some laughs. But Ed Westwick's character Vincent Swan, a toerag who parks his flash motor on double yellow lines with a disabled badge, is too slimy to be a likeable rogue.

This territory was covered far more cleverly during the Thatcher years by Harry Enfield, and David Jason, of course, in Only Fools And Horses. This isn't a complete failure, but it's crude and blunt instead of polished and sharp.

Forget Peter Kay. Car share with Miriam Margolyes

Two days after the return of Peter Kay's sitcom-with-seatbelts, Car Share, the BBC decides it's the perfect time to launch another on-the-road comedy starring a bickering couple stuck behind the wheel.

As a piece of scheduling incompetence, it's impressive. But I don't suppose Frog Stone, the writer and co-star of Bucket (BBC4), is applauding. She must feel like a Robin Reliant being bullied off the road by Peter Kay's juggernaut.

The real pity is that Bucket is a much funnier show. It has bawdy jokes, a proper plot and a mother-daughter relationship that isn't so much dysfunctional as dangerously unhinged.