David Mitchell (I)

Very early on in Upstart Crow, a collaborative Ben Elton-William Shakespeare vehicle for the hopelessly thick and untalented David Mitchell, a member of the studio audience reacted to Liza Tarbuck just saying something in an accent, with her titty-dumplings to the fore with the kind of prolonged loud screeching fit that you or I could only hope to achieve while dousing our genitals in hydrochloric acid. My heart sank. But soon it actually began to get funny, sometimes very. The audience member had obviously been led out by an intern with the promise of a cup of tea and perhaps, actually it's to be hoped, a reassuring whisper of "you're not clever enough for this, dear". By the end, this mashup of Will's artistic frustrations in an England seething with stupidity, and as relevant to today as to 1584, had become a delight, to the extent the audience was anticipating the gags. Of a fiendishly cunning plot to frustrate young love, in which it had become necessary to procure a play-dead potion, Mitchell's brimming "I can't see how it can possibly go wrong" had much of the hubristic glee in seeing it coming of a Mainwaring, a Hancock.

Inevitable parallels - there was much God's bodikins! and gut-porridge stuff - will be drawn with Blackadder, although perhaps someone could tell me why that's in any conceivable way a bad thing. But Mr Elton has (almost) wholly redeemed himself for crimes against David Haig in the relentlessly smile-free elf'n'safety trudge that was 2013's The Wright Way, and it's nice to see he's got his brain back. And I do like Spencer Jones as Kempe, played as Ricky Gervais as David Brent - way too knowingly see-what-I-did-there, but that's how Ben rolls.

Preview: Upstart Crow, episode 2

It's great to report that the first episode of Upstart Crow was not a fluke. Writer Ben Elton repeats the trick again in the second episode. In fact if there is a problem here it isn't so much that this week's episode is like Blackadder, it's more a case that it is too much like last week's episode.

Ben Elton's Upstart Crow seems stuck in the 1980s, or 1970s, with its embarrassing canned laughter (if it's actually a studio audience, then it deserves to be confined to a can) and eagerness to please.

David Mitchell portrays a more modern William Shakespeare, who is struggling to make a name for himself - not helped by an uncaring world, and family. The Ricky Gervais mickey take character (Kempe - Spencer Jones) is faintly amusing, but Elton crams in far too many words - many of them, sadly, pathetically juvenile.

Loving Ben Elton's new Shakespeare sitcom

There's no way of saying this without shredding the last vestiges of my critical credibility, but this new Ben Elton comedy series, Upstart Crow (BBC2, Mondays), about William Shakespeare: I'm loving it and think it's really, really funny.

Review: Upstart Crow, BBC Two

David Mitchell, like all the cast, is superb, and his pedantic, sarcastic panel show persona works beautifully for the put-upon Will. Ben Elton's script is a gag-rich riot of clever comedy, the kind that has to be watched at least twice to appreciate all the jokes and references, the sight gags and throwaways. Complete joy from start to finish.

Ben Elton finds the comedy in Shakespeare's history

With David Mitchell playing the Bard as a flowery show-off, there's lots to enjoy in this knockabout sitcom with Liza Tarbuck.

I'd been looking forward to this new series. It's a sitcom about Shakespeare, written by Ben Elton and starring David Mitchell and so, naturally, anyone with half a brain would be anticipating it. But perhaps I set my expectations too high as it was a disappointment.

Mitchell plays Shakespeare, trying to keep his temper as he composes Romeo and Juliet in his messy kitchen while his family deride his work. He asks his teenage daughter to recite Juliet's words and she responds like every modern teenager when faced with Shakespeare's ornate language: "I don't say stuff like this, Dad. I'd sound like a complete turnip!" Yet he can hardly made it sound like authentic teenspeak: "Ugh. Shut up, Romeo. You're so weird. I hate you."

Things perk up when Elton makes some digs at privilege and the upper classes, mocking "the English posh boy" and their membership of Oxbridge clubs like The Fisted Peasant. It's funny in places but not quite big enough for its boots.

What's in a name? When it's Ben Elton, quite a lot, considering his new sitcom marks the writer's return to a historical setting for the first time since Blackadder. The principal character in this comedy should offer more meticulous wordplay than Bladders could: the action revolves around one William Shakespeare (David Mitchell). Sadly, this veers towards Elton's insufferable The Wright Way, with double-entendre-strewn dialogue masking a distinct lack of laughs.

Upstart Crow review

Gadzooks! After some high-profile flops in both hemispheres, Ben Elton has rediscovered his mojo... and all it took was a return trip to Elizabethan England.

Ben Elton's Shakespeare sitcom was not too Bard

Its sitcom format feels lumbering and it has a complacent tendency to rely on David Mitchell's waspish delivery of cod-Shakespearese - but, since it's the poor chap's anniversary, I could give it one more chance next week. Not quite Bard yet, then.