Dawn French

Jam and Jerusalem is distractingly top-heavy with star turns. Appearing in Jennifer Saunders' new sitcom is clearly a prestige gig for an actor, so much so that Hywel Bennett can be recruited for the sole purpose of being killed off and getting the plot moving.

Sue Johnstone stars as grieving widow Sal, forced by bereavement and redundancy into the companionable embrace of the local Women's Institute. Cue a host of comedy cameos from people accustomed to having their own shows.

My inclination is to despise Jam and Jerusalem, like Chelsea FC, for greedily snapping up all the available talent. However, like Chelsea FC, the show is rather successful. Saunders' script is poignant and amusing - there was even a moment of comic genius featuring a false arm - the characters just the right side of eccentric and the starry cast certainly deliver the goods. My favourite performance was Rosie Cavaliero's bereavement counsellor, gently admonishing Sal for processing her feelings of grief in entirely the wrong order.

Two main gripes. First, how come Sal was completely composed and unaffected by her husband's funeral? Second, what is Dawn French doing? Everyone else in the cast has adopted a naturalistic acting style, whereas French has opted for a more panto approach in playing the village idiot.

A brand new game for Friday nights: spot Joanna Lumley. She's absolutely unrecognisable as a bonkers bicycling pensioner in Jennifer Saunders' gentle rural comedy set in Clatterford in Devon - one of those imaginary villages where you can't step out of your cottage without tripping over a dozen or so gurning eccentrics.

But what this lacks in laughs it makes up for in star names. As well as Saunders playing a rich, horsey, friend of Madonna-type, there's Pauline McLynn from Father Ted, Sally Phillips from Smack The Pony, Maggie Steed as the leader of the Women's Guild, a bubble-permed Dawn French as the village idiot, and David Mitchell of That Mitchell And Webb Look.

The piece was actually written for Sue Johnston who plays Sal Vine, the practice nurse whose doctor husband rather thoughtlessly keels over and dies.

Perhaps because of the huge cast, and the way slapstick comedy runs alongside sadness, this first episode feels like a patchwork quilt knocked up from leftover wool.

But some scenes, such as when Sal is visited by a hopeless grief counsellor (the brilliant Rosie Cavaliero) suggest it might be worth giving it a chance to find its feet.

The omens are good for this new Friday-night comedy: it's packed with talent - including Joanna Lumley, Sue Johnston, David Mitchell, Pauline McLynn, Dawn French and Sally Phillips. It's also written by Jennifer Saunders, whose flappywomen comedy formula may not be universally popular, but it has a devoted following among viewers.

But, my goodness, it's hard to find laugh-out-loud moments in this first episode - or even smile-politely ones even though the setting of the action should inspire them: a small Devon village characterised by League of Gentlemenly oddness.

In a week in which Dawn French began her so far failed attempt to show that her comedic skills can embrace radio as well as TV, Sally Phillips' turn as the social worker who is just not a people person edged ever closer to classic comedy monster status.

Mastering the Universe must have looked very funny on paper. When I look back at the lines I noted while listening, they're really quite ticklish. Dawn French playing Professor Joy Klamp, reader in Passive Aggression at Sussex University, describes "sorry", when delivered grudgingly, as "the most exciting, mysterious, liberating, non-apologetic word in the dictionary". She then extols "the fulfilling empowerment of sulking, and mooching, and staring into the middle distance and making little ticklish noises when anyone says something funny".

But it didn't make me laugh. Dawn French did the same act as ever, and in a restless, unsatisfying performance made it clear how much her comedy relies on facial expressions. The script was also overwritten and featured too many lame sketches. It's a pity because the concept behind the show is indeed funny, yet listening was a reminder that unsuccessful comedy is one of the grimmest things. Even the majestic Brian Perkins, delivering the opening and closing lines, couldn't make this the stuff of chuckles.

Joy Klamp is a writer, broadcaster and prominent academic. Her latest venture was born at an unsuccessful dinner party. "I was clattering some pans in the kitchen," she recalls, "when someone said to me, 'You know, Joy, you've really got this passive aggression thing down to a fine art. You ought to share your knowledge with the world.' I didn't say anything because I'd been moodily silent all evening. But it did set me thinking that everyone deserves to experience the fulfilling empowerment of sulking and mooching and staring into the middle distance. Spoiling someone else's fun can be the most satisfying of all the controlling arts."

The result is Mastering the Universe, a six-part course in advanced "nonjoyment techniques".

This is funny. Sadly, its star Dawn French is the worst thing about it. While everyone else is letting their acting play second fiddle to the words - by Nick Newman, of Private Eye, and the great Christopher Douglas, who gave the world the failed cricketer Dave Podmore, and the even better Ed Reardon's Week, the failed writer - French presents her character as though she were Dawn French without the large bosom jokes. As that character shows promise - her job is teaching people how to be miserable - it is to be hoped that French gets the hang of this radio comedy lark soon.

Merry Christmas was not the best Vicar of Dibley (BBC1) you ever saw but Dawn French was show-stopping as a vicar drunk in charge of a pulpit.

The Sitcom Story surely disappoints both the comedy fan, who wants something other than just the same old clips again, and the casual viewer who just wants the clips without the dull chat. Yet that's obviously the problem with trying to squeeze some 50 years of television into three hour-long shows.

The French & Saunders effort was as uninspiring and unfunny as that which preceded it. There is a classic difference between thinking that you're funny and actually being funny. It is plainly clear on which side of that particular dichotomy Jennifer and Dawn lie.