David Mitchell (I)

Peep Show: why it's still the UK's best sitcom

As David Mitchell and Robert Webb return for a seventh series of Peep Show, Catherine Gee looks at how, after all these years, it's still getting laughs.

The outstanding Peep Show returns for a seventh bleakly comic series, and the first episode opens with Sophie in hospital on the verge of giving birth, and Mark (David Mitchell) and Jeremy (Robert Webb) are there to lend their 'support'. It turns out that Mark is more worried about a burst boiler in his flat and Jeremy only has eyes for fellow visitor Zahra, whose boyfriend is in a coma. But will he wake before Jezza gets his mucky mitts on her?

Is Mark Corrigan ready for fatherhood? Of course not - but he doesn't really have much choice in the matter.

As series seven opens, Sophie is on all fours in the delivery suite, screaming out for gas and air, a water birth, an epidural and, ideally, a less useless birthing partner.

There's every chance the baby will be an adult itself before Mark is grown up enough to deal with a responsibility like this - so there's no surprise tonight when he deals with the stress by hiding.

For self-obsessed man-child Jeremy, the hospital provides an unexpected opportunity for him to get over his ex when he meets another girl visiting her ­coma-stricken boyfriend.

That's just one of the many reasons to love Jeremy - he could be falling headfirst down an active volcano and his number one impulse would still be to scour the area for talent.

As a new arrival ushers in a whole new arena in which Mark and Jez can fail to shine, perhaps this will finally be the series when the nation discovers how to press the number 4 on their TVs, Peep Show makes the long overdue leap from cult hit to national treasure and David Mitchell, Robert Webb, writers Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong and director Becky Martin are carried around the streets of London on golden sedan chairs. We can but dream.

Despite never attracting the wider audience it deserves, Peep Show - starring David Mitchell and Robert Webb as Mark and Jez, a latter-day flat-sharing odd couple - has from the outset maintained its reputation as one of the very best British sitcoms. Now entering its seventh season, it is also Channel 4's longest running comedy and, happily, shows no signs of falling off in quality. Quite the opposite; tonight's episode opens up a whole new vista of comic possibilities as Mark (Mitchell) marches none-too-enthusiastically across the Rubicon that is parenthood and, initially at least, doesn't respond well to the prospect of responsibility.

Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain's scalpel-sharp script brilliantly exposes the average male's helplessness, incomprehension and terror when confronted with the maternal agonies of childbirth - and the overwhelming urge to run away. Meanwhile, in a different wing of the hospital, Jez (Webb) seeks a cure for his recently broken heart in the shape of the attractively bookish partner of a comatose patient - with predictably cringe-making results.

Video: Is Peep Show popular in the States?

Robert Webb and David Mitchell talk to BBC Breakfast about their latest series of Peep Show. The sitcom was nominated at this year's Emmy awards but do Americans find it funny?

David Mitchell annoyed Peep Show is online first

Peep Show star David Mitchell is upset that Channel 4 bosses premiered the seventh series online.

Jez and Mark ... by the people who know them best

As they return for a seventh series, will fatherhood make men of the El Dude brothers? Who better to ask than writers Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong and stars David Mitchell and Robert Webb?

David Mitchell & Robert Webb interview

David Mitchell and Robert Webb are back with a seventh series of Peep Show. They sat down with TV Choice to tell us a bit about what to expect...

Jimmy Carr interview: stand-up comedy, 10 O'Clock Live

"I saw Charlie Brooker and David Mitchell the other night. We all independently said that it's going to be fine, I've got you two there! We've all done nothing, but are relying on the others."

You'd be a foolhardy parent to leave your house unguarded for the weekend if your son is one of The Inbetweeners. But Will's mum is a flighty type, who regards her son as a sort of teenage David Mitchell, who's more likely to research science projects than have a good time. Unfortunately for her, the same cannot be said for Will's mates Jay, Simon and Neil. So the minute she leaves for a weekend away with an old school friend, the boys are straight round to Will's for a weekend of decadent partying.