David Chater

All parents are obliged to embarrass their children - it's part of the natural order of things - and this gentle new comedy series is based on that moral imperative. Jimmy Nail plays a former musician, recently divorced, who earns his living as a cabinet maker. He had one big hit during the 1980s and now pours all his energy into managing his teenage son's band. But so, too, do all the other parents, reducing the kids - who only ever wanted to play music together for fun - to rigid statues of embarrassment. It gets worse next week when one of the fathers tells his son that he loves him. Twice. On the same day.

When it flies, stand-up comedy is an exhilarating experience, and this - the first of a new series of Live at the Apollo - is a spectacularly good example of the genre. It is introduced by Michael McIntyre, who minces around the stage exploding with energy ('When I smile,' he asks, 'do I look like a fat Chinese man?' Yes, Michael, you know you do). He is followed by Rich Hall, who describes how an Englishman loses his temper ('I shall write a letter!') and how he met the Queen at Buckingham Palace. And it ends with an insane performance by a Welshman, Rhod Gilbert, who has a high-octane nervous breakdown trying to buy a duvet. If even a tiny part of you enjoys stand-up, you don't want to miss this.

Series two of the Bafta award-winning comedy gets a repeat (it was first shown on BBC Three) to take us up to the Christmas Special, which is sure to be a highlight of the festive season. The writers James Corden and Ruth Jones - who also play Gavin and Stacey's best friends Smithy and Nessa - have created such a tight but wide-ranging cast of characters, each loveable in their own way, that it's always a pleasure to meet them again. Nessa, in particular, is brilliant - hard as nails and with a thousand past lives, including driving for The Who and founding the girlband All Saints. One thing she hasn't done, though, is have a baby, and her pregnancy is revealed to a shocked Smithy tonight.

Now into its third season, The IT Crowd is still flying a flag for the old-fashioned sitcom. Set in the basement of a company where the nerds (Chris O'Dowd and Richard Ayoade) reboot computers under a manager who knows nothing about them, it comes replete with punchlines, farce and raucous laughter. It also tends to be wildly erratic. It can be very funny when it works, but if the farce doesn't fly, there is not enough substance in the characters to make up the difference.

This episode - in which a line manager suspects a builder of peeing into her basin at home - is not a vintage one.

Eddie Izzard has always been a law unto himself, a fact well demonstrated in this triumphant performance given in San Francisco nearly ten years ago.

It includes routines on the Heimlich manoeuvre, Kennedy's 'Ich bin ein Berliner' speech, Da Vinci's Last Supper, the story of how Engelbert Humperdinck got his name and - an obvious subject for humour, this - the development of prehistoric architecture. 'Before there was Stonehenge,' he explains, 'there was Woodhenge and Strawhenge...' It is safe to say that there is no other comedian like him.

I had forgotten just how wonderful this series is - albeit wonderful in a deadpan sort of a way. The director Lindsay Anderson said once that the key to success was in the casting, and that is certainly the case here. Tonight, Magda (Anna Crilly), the surly East European help, moves in with the family because 'boiler is leaking gas'. She partitions the fridge like the Berlin Wall and poisons the son with her carthorse sausages, while Mel (Raquel Cassidy) - the wife who usually manages to keep it all together - gets splendidly drunk. I laughed out loud, which woke up my mother-in-law and startled the dog.

In November last year, The South Bank Show produced a wonderful profile of the satirical veterans Bird and Fortune. During the programme, the pair did a two-handed analysis of the sub-prime crisis. Aside from being achingly funny, this nine-minute sketch provided a devastatingly accurate analysis of how the mess came about. You can still see it on YouTube, where it has already notched up (literally) millions of hits without any publicity.

It makes sense, therefore, that Bremner, Bird and Fortune should tackle the crisis in greater depth in this new four-part series. They are certain to offer a sharper - and far funnier - guide to the crisis than many an economic analyst.

There are good reasons why Russell Brand has become such a comic phenomenon - and there are equally good reasons why he has been suspended from BBC duties. Publicity accompanies Brand like an attendant pilot fish, so much so that Sachs-gate suddenly seems like brilliantly spun PR for his returning Channel 4 stand-up series. Those who enjoy his surreal, decidedly unwholesome observations on the oddities of life will gleefully lap this up.

In the final episode, the inveterate gambler (Steve Coogan) seeks help for his addiction and tries to find a job. Many viewers may find it cloying and sentimental, and no doubt parts of it are. This addict, after all, remains charming despite his destructive behaviour and even the worst of the misery is ameliorated by laughter. But look at it another way. Thousands of lives are destroyed by addictions of one sort or another, and television plays an important role in passing on information. Sunshine uses jokes and warmth to suggest that addiction doesn't have to be a terminal illness. If it sugars the pill, is that so terrible?

The wacky commentator on the quirks and idiocies of television is back for an eighth series, no less. His numerous fans will be pleased to know that the run has been extended to 25 episodes; it includes a TV Burp review of 2008 to be broadcast over Christmas, followed by four extra shows made up of highlights from all the series that will go out in the new year.

Given his workload, it is lucky that Harry Hill enjoys making these series. It's a doddle to film, he has said. I get to sit down and it's all on autocue. The only downside is that you have to watch a lot of TV, which is a form of torture.