Denis Lawson

The road to success is pitted with potholes for the bosses of all-female taxi firm Candy Cabs.

In this new three part series, 'the Candies' must deal with their own chaotic private lives if they are to survive in business, plus opposition from rival companies in the seaside resort of South Hadley. Led by Jackie and Elaine (EastEnders' Jo Joyner and comedy star Lisa Millett) it's not long before personal obstacles interfere with their professional dreams.

A poor showing at the launch party leaves the girls worried then they discover that their drivers need to pass 'the Knowledge' to keep working. Can Candy Cabs survive the bumpy ride? A superb cast includes Denis Lawson, Claire Sweeney and Ricky Whittle.

Nobody watches BBC3 comedy pilots with total confidence, and with no preview DVD available, we haven't watched this one at all. But it has pedigree. Rhys Thomas, the straight-man star of Bellamy's People, writes and stars in a studio sitcom about police community support officers who want to be real cops, and who constantly derail investigations they shouldn't even be involved in. Years ago, Thomas had a minor cult hit with Fun at the Funeral Parlour - this sounds broader and more accessible. Look out for Denis Lawson as the chief constable.

The most obvious point about a Richard Curtis comedy is that everybody is quite likeable. This seems pretty basic to me. If you think Bridget Jones has a face like a slapped backside, and a personality to boot, you don't care whether she ends up with Mr Darcy or is left to endure an unhappy marriage with, say, a second-hand car dealer from South Norwood. This was the big problem with Mister Eleven. The heroine, the Bridget Jones of this particular romcom, was absolutely ghastly in every way. She was spoilt, silly, self-absorbed and seemed to be a bit thick, despite being a maths whiz. About 10 minutes into the action, she whipped out her mobile phone and called a convenient shoulder to cry on. "Just this once," said her chosen shoulder, "get over yourself." In our house, there was cheering and high-fiving.

Here is the plot. Saz Paley is a maths teacher who has been obsessed by numbers from a very early age. We know she's a maths teacher because she says "quadratic equations" every so often, and is keen on prob­ability. She tells us, for example, that most women marry the 11th man they sleep with. So Saz, for reasons best known to herself, but essential to getting the show on the road, marries a doctor called Dan for that reason. But, wouldn't you know it, she discovers at the reception that he's not Mister Eleven after all. Mr Nine shows up unexpectedly (as somebody's boyfriend) and reveals that she was too drunk to do anything worthwhile on their one-night stand. Cue collapse of marriage.

What Sazza should probably do next is consult her GP and get something done about her obsessive personality. What she does instead is try to rekindle her relationship with nice Mr Four, who turns out to be married with twins. "Twins?" Saz says. "You must have fantastic sperm." Frankly, it's astonishing that Saz has managed to sleep with four men, let alone 10.

Am I being harsh? Perhaps so, but I suspect that the director also worried about the thin thread on which the plot was attempting to balance. The script works very, very hard to keep us interested. Everything moves quickly, and the action switches every so often to a classroom, which is possibly also Saz's imagination.

Anyway, eventually the inevitable happens. Mr Nine (alias Alex the Australian) meets Saz in a hospital, to which location the plot has inevitably propelled her. You remember, of course, that Saz's husband, Dan, is a doctor. So you'll know what happens next. Alex and Saz embrace passionately. Enter Dan. With non-hilarious consequences.

In the interests of balance, I should warn you that my view of Mister Eleven might possibly be the result of bitterness and middle age. It seems only yesterday that I went to see the film Local Hero and emerged from the cinema as the women in our party swore undying devotion to Denis Lawson, that film's official love interest. In Mister Eleven, he plays an old bloke who is clearly going to have a heart attack or somesuch in episode two. What you have been reading so far could well be a midlife crisis.

No Holds Bard, a spoof documentary about a Burns recitation competition, had its work cut out to take away the taste of that title, but managed it in the end, being full of good glancing jokes. Denis Lawson plays Miekel McMiekel, president of the Dumfries Burns Society and a man determined to hold on to the cup for the seventh year running, despite the fact that their star performer Struan is in the middle of a messy break-up from his wife and can barely get through a single line of "Ae Fond Kiss" without bursting into tears. The competition was provided by Hayley, a young girl tormented by her pushy mother (Ashley Jensen), Paula, an English incomer stubbornly blind to the violent anti-English feeling of her neighbours, and Stevie, a prisoner from a local jail who has been encouraged to enter by his naively trusting literacy teacher.

It got a bit farcically over-excited towards the end - as if the plot actually mattered - but you could forgive it a lot for the invention of the Timorous Beastie Boys, three spotty adolescents who rapped their way through a "street" version of "Robert Bruce's March to Bannockburn".

As much a celebration of Scotland's acting talent as it is of Robbie Burns, this mockumentary was first shown on BBC Scotland in January, on the 250th anniversary of the bard's birth. The gags are as recognisable as the poetry, yet there's plenty of fun to be had. Set in Burns's hometown, Alloway, it follows the ragbag of entrants for the annual recital competition. Familiar faces include Ashley Jensen, pushy mum of wide-eyed Hayley; Denis Lawson as the despotic head of the Burns Society, with Paul Higgins his lovesick hopeful; and a gleeful cameo from Bill Paterson as a touchy-feely tartan seller.

This is another chance to see the mockumentary made for the 250th birthday of Rabbie Burns about a village having an annual recital competition. Say what you like about the Scots, and really, you should, they do have some talented actors. The material is patchy (we don't mean Burns's poetry) - but the likes of Ashley Jensen, Denis Lawson - and best of all Bill Paterson - are so entertaining that it really doesn't matter.