Dan Swimer

Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: read the screenplay

Read the entire script (pdf).

If you like that joke [about masturbation], then you'll enjoy the wanking rota in Crims. This new sitcom is set in a young offenders' institution where Luke and Jason (Elis James and Kadiff Kirwan) have lately been banged up. The main joke is that Luke, wrongfully imprisoned, is eager to stay out of trouble but can't help incurring the wrath of both staff and inmates while also worrying about his faithless girlfriend. James is a likeable presence, and despite looking about 10 years too old for the role, finds different ways to play panic, fear and anxiety.

The script is by Adam Kay and Dan Swimer, whose basic premise has more going for it than Cockroaches and yet, with the fusillade of gags about bodily fluids, body parts and sexual incontinence, it feels as if the bar has been set too low. It's no excuse pinning the blame on the BBC Three demographic. This was the channel which proved with Gavin & Stacey that it knows how to involve organs not located in the underwear region, such as the brain and the heart. Winston Stanley Fletcher can rest easy in his grave.

Comedy writer Dan Swimer interview

As a writer on Never Mind the Buzzcocks and Grandma's House, Swimer is the unsung star of some of the best TV comedy of the past decade. As his new sitcom, Crims, begins, he tells Alice Jones why he's still terrified of the spotlight.

After an assured debut in 2010, this was the year that Simon Amstell and Dan Swimer's housebound sitcom really hit its stride. Amstell was still not the greatest actor in the world, but he was playing such an awkward version of himself it didn't matter. He'd also surrounded himself with great characters, played by great actors (Rebecca Front, James Smith, Samantha Spiro, Linda Bassett). While being audaciously self-referential - Amstell's ill-advised joke about Russell Watson's brain tumour on BBC Breakfast was used as a plot device - it was ultimately warm-hearted, with deft scripting that skipped from lunacy to poignancy without missing a beat.

Writers' Guild Awards 2012 shortlists

Best Radio Comedy: I, Regress - Matt Berry; Another Case of Milton Jones - Milton Jones, James Cary; In and Out of the Kitchen - Miles Jupp. Best TV Comedy: Holy Flying Circus - Tony Roche; PhoneShop - Phil Bowker, Jon MacQueen; Grandma's House - Simon Amstell, Dan Swimer.

The current series of Grandma's House ended last night. At least I hope "current series" is accurate because Dan Swimer and Simon Amstell's comedy keeps getting better, its account of repressed feeling and family in-fighting beautifully discordant (the signature tune is perfect). Last night tuned the self-knowledge to an even higher pitch: "That would have been very funny if you'd laughed," Amstell told his mother, after accusing her of compensating for her own disappointing life by obsessing over his career. "Your silence made it seem a bit mean." And then it ended with him glumly watching an old Never Mind the Buzzcocks performance on YouTube, his dreams of love and happiness having evaporated. Hard to believe one laughs at all, really, but I did. A lot.

Simon Amstell and co-writer Dan Swimer know how to twist the knife in their characters. They're superb at making the front room of Grandma's suburban semi a hilarious, bay-fronted hell for all involved.

Tanya has married the dreadful Clive; Grandma is still quietly mad with grief ("I think I need to go and count my shoes"); and Simon is so out of place he might as well be adopted. But great sitcoms are all about that sense of being trapped, (from Steptoe to Reggie Perrin to Risgby to David Brent), and Grandma's House's great symphony of awkwardness climaxes tonight as Simon's boyfriend/director Ben drops by and Simon is caught between two worlds - both seemingly set on crushing him. It's a fabulous finale.

Simon Amstell's writing partner Dan Swimer has said there's unlikely to be a third series of Grandma's House, which would be a huge pity.

But like Fawlty Towers which also left us wanting more, tonight's episode has the real whiff of comedy legend about it.

As the tension is gradually cranked up throughout the half-hour, the payoff is an absolutely classic scene which deserves to be repeated in comedy clip shows for years to come.

Simon, of Never Mind the Buzzcocks fame, is in rehearsals for the opening of his play and is worried (with very good reason) that his limited acting skills won't stretch to crying on cue.

And there are subtle nods here to Simon's obsessively healthy eating habits as well as his less angelic habit of ripping into celebrities.

But it's also his mother's birthday and she has decided to book herself a stripper.

Rebecca Front, who plays Tanya so perfectly, has an absolute whale of a time this week.

The sight of Tanya's birthday present to herself grimly gyrating around Grandma's three-piece suite in a fireman's outfit is enough to make you weep with laughter.

Simon Amstell's writing partner Dan Swimer has said there's unlikely to be a third series of Grandma's House, which would be a huge pity.

But like Fawlty Towers which also left us wanting more, tonight's episode has the real whiff of comedy legend about it.

As the tension is gradually cranked up throughout the half-hour, the payoff is an absolutely classic scene which deserves to be repeated in comedy clip shows for years to come.

Simon, of Never Mind the Buzzcocks fame, is in rehearsals for the opening of his play and is worried (with very good reason) that his limited acting skills won't stretch to crying on cue.

And there are subtle nods here to Simon's obsessively healthy eating habits as well as his less angelic habit of ripping into celebrities. But it's also his mother's birthday and she has decided to book herself a stripper.

Rebecca Front, who plays Tanya so perfectly, has an absolute whale of a time this week. The sight of Tanya's birthday present to herself grimly gyrating around Grandma's three-piece suite in a fireman's outfit is enough to make you weep with laughter.

Grandma's House unlikely to return for a 3rd series

Simon Amstell's sitcom Grandma's House is unlikely to return for a third series, his co-writer Dan Swimer has said.