Frank Skinner

Frank Skinner pulls back his magic joystick to reveal another set of extreme dislikes. While the delightfully offbeat Paloma Faith would give Ugg boots the boot and merrily accuses Skinner of voting Tory, she's disconcerted by the tendencies of her fellow guests, blokey comedian Jason Manford and Dragons' Den moneybags Deborah Meaden, who can't bear it when she has to wait behind people rummaging for change in a shop. Like she does her own shopping.

The best bit of this comedy panel show has to be the ingenious 3D models that illustrate the pet hates of Frank Skinner's guests. What will they come up with for Extreme Fishing With Robson Green, which gets Janet Street-Porter's goat? Among Ben Fogle's bugbears is the suitcase on wheels, while skyscraper comedian Greg Davies - The Inbetweeners' stern head - really, really, really hates pointless TV interviews with members of the public. Let the squabbles commence.

Miranda Hart popped up all over the TV at Christmas, pratfalling her way through her own Yuletide special and the start of her third series. Not to mention Call The Midwife. Yet she still has time to drop by and do verbal battle with fellow guests John Craven and Reggie Yates as they try to persuade host Frank Skinner to dump their personal pet hates into Room 101. Bluetooth gets Yates's goat, Craven loathes Kindles, while Hart would like to dispose of her own breasts, which have been known to clap at inappropriate moments. Such fun.

You can't invite Miranda Hart on this kind of panel show and not expect her to dominate. She is one of three guests hoping to convince host Frank Skinner that their pet hates should be consigned to the vault of loathing - it's the new format they launched last year, remember?

So we get the usual airing of comedy grudges, but Hart breaks new ground when she nominates not just smartphones and pineapple on pizza but, in the wildcard round, her own breasts, bemoaning all the times they have embarrassed her (once when she was rolling over in bed naked, they clapped). Skinner, whose role is normally to argue on behalf of the things the guests hate, looks floored.

Meanwhile, Reggie Yates reveals a hatred of drinking yogurt (!I don't want a cup of gone-off stuff!) as well as the ubiquitous hip-hop handshake. It's left to John Craven to play it straight. He gets the biggest cheer of the night from the studio audience when he nominates e-books.

It's not often you see Frank Skinner completely lost for words. So full marks to Miranda Hart for reducing him and her male fellow panellists to utter embarrassment with her unexpected nomination for a pet hate to consign to Room 101.

The re-imagined format is the same as it was last year when Frank Skinner stepped into Paul Merton's shoes. Three guests compete to have items in particular categories sent to pretend oblivion. Presenters John Craven and Reggie Yates also gamely do the business tonight. But it's a tougher gig than it looks.

The secret to being a really good Room 101 guest is being able to be amusingly irate about some quite trivial detail of modern life, without tipping over the edge into actual, genuine, scary anger.

The late Peter Cook calmly pointing to the mind-numbing dullness of the countryside - "has this film been speeded up?" - is still the gold standard by which all guests will be judged and Reggie Yates, bless him, is no Peter Cook. But then how het up is it possible to get about the existence of yogurt drinks?

It's hardly a dream line-up to kick off the new series of the Frank Skinner-steered Room 101: Reggie Yates, Miranda Hart and John Craven. It's a kind of post-Cameron vision of Middle England - a well-spoken young black man, a well-spoken, sexually unthreatening woman and a well-spoken John Craven, the Hawkshead catalogue of broadcasting.

Predictably, none of this lot has anything much to get worked up about: it's difficult to imagine any of them getting worked up about much ever, but really it's the format that's at fault. Room 101 doesn't work as a panel show: it needs individuals to warm to their theme, then accidentally-on-purpose reveal a colossal, Kenneth Williams-style inner Looney Tunes life. It also leaves Skinner with little to do, though he does manage to get in a decent gag about the Nazis to remind people that there are whole dark volumes of his comedy that rarely get opened these days, especially on the BBC.

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When a comedian chats with someone in the front row of the audience, it's often the funniest part of the show. The performer spontaneously proving their smarts is a thrill.

Now imagine a panel game where comics grill punters who sit in designated seats and have been chosen because their lives or personalities are funny. Sounds great in theory, but you can't regiment banter. Even with Frank Skinner on the panel and Jack Dee hosting, every joke here is forced - until it emerges that one of the stooges used to be a porn actor, after which it's groansome easy wins all the way.