Geoffrey Hutchings

The fact that actor Geoffrey Hutchings sadly died in 2010 after the first series of this sitcom was made has been worked in gently, as the absence of his character, Grandpa, ripples through the plot. It affects Grandma most, wonderfully played by Linda Bassett. Her desperate refusal to acknowedge emotion - often changing the subject to offer someone fruit - is becoming more extreme. Last week we learnt that she has taken to stealing china pandas from friends' houses.

This week, things get worse as the marital problems of her daughter, the brilliantly horrible Auntie Liz, threaten to engulf the family. ("Do you want a melon?" quavers Grandma, desperately.) That gives scope for Samantha Spiro as Liz to chart the range of her hilariously shifty, two-faced character. It's her finest hour yet, a cringe-making masterclass, and very funny.

Simon Amstell's dysfunctional family sitcom, Grandma's House, returns for another run of gently serrated farce, in which the lapsed tormentor of pop buffoons plays an undisguised version of himself struggling to escape from his abrasive public image.

Last time he was trying to achieve something more meaningful with his life and craft - in reality, of course, he made Grandma's House - and as we reconvene he's finally been given a self-penned TV pilot. Which sounds a lot like Grandma's House. His proudly forthright Jewish mother - played by the great Rebecca Front - is naturally delighted, especially since Simon's career slump means he now lives in grandma's box room. "I can feel the shame lifting, can you?" she beams.

Like a more populous variation on Roger and Val Have Just Got In, each episode unfolds entirely within the titular abode, with the intensely self-aware Simon a perpetually mortified victim of his family's eccentricity. As before it's all very likeable, witty and controlled and Amstell has thankfully improved as an actor following a painfully self-conscious start during the first series. Indeed, they've developed his shortcomings into a running gag within the show itself - episode one is titled "The day Simon officially became a very good and totally employable actor."

The death of actor Geoffrey Hutchings, who played Simon's granddad in the first series, is deftly handled (you won't find overbearing schmaltz in this show), with his absence quietly underpinning an otherwise typically chucklesome episode in which our discomfited protagonist deals with the fall-out from a one night stand and fails to mend a possibly symbolic leak.

If I have a criticism it's that Samantha Spiro as Simon's embittered aunt is still too broad at times, although James Smith - coincidentally Front's co-star in The Thick Of It - continues to judge his performance perfectly as mum's hopeless ex-fiancée. Also, apropos motherly concern, a brief topless scene reveals that Amstell has the body of an emaciated alien. Eat, man, eat!

Real tears for Beindorm's Mel

The stars of Benidorm have told how the tears they shed for Mel Garvey in last night's Christmas special were real. Actor Geoffrey Hutchings, who played Mel, died of an infection in July and Derren Litten, who writes the ITV1 show, penned a touching ending as a tribute.

Derren Litten's Costa comedy is, as you'd hope, growing old gracelessly. At its heart is still the crabby marriage of Mick (Steve Pemberton) and Janice (Siobhan Finneran) as they take their umpteenth break in the Spanish sun, although these days Janice's mean-spirited mum is married to local mobility-scooter king, Mel, and hanging out at his lavish villa in a Jacuzzi. Mel was played by Geoffrey Hutchings, who died earlier this year, but this one-off finds a touching way to deal with his passing. As farcical storylines collide, a sad tale bubbles away off-screen.

It's the last episode of Simon Amstell's carefully crafted sitcom in which he stars as himself. The series has seen some superb performances from its sparkly cast, most notably Rebecca Front as Amstell's onscreen mother Tanya. Tonight, Tanya and Clive's (James Smith) plans to get married are disrupted when Grandpa (Geoffrey Hutchings) becomes ill.

It's the day of Tanya's wedding to Clive, but Grandpa has had a turn. And the bride is clearly having doubts. What started off a little unsurely has developed into a corker of series, and it will be a shame to see it go. Unfortunately, this episode (and indeed this whole series) has been a little overshadowed by the passing in July of actor Geoffrey Hutchings, who played Grandpa.

Tonight's episode of this quietly subversive comedy about a dysfunctional Jewish family, in which the comedian Simon Amstell plays himself, is the best so far. Cantankerous Grandpa (Geoffrey Hutchings) invites round ebullient local drama teacher Deborah (Pam Ferris). There's a winning performance from Jamal Hadjkura as unlikely teenage rebel Adam. Accusations that he's impregnated a classmate provoke a hilariously unsavoury response.

It was a curate's egg of a half-hour, not that a curate and his egg offer the best metaphor for a show about a loving but bickering family of east London Jews. In fact, it is a singularly ill-fitting metaphor, the expression "curate's egg" originating in the old Punch cartoon about a curate who was too timid to complain about a bad egg he had been served. There would be no such timidity at any table of Jews worth their salt beef. Even a visiting rabbi would spit out such an egg.

Enough eggs already. Grandma's House revolves around the simple idea, one that dates back almost to the birth of television comedy, of different generations of the same family arguing in a front room. Steptoe and Son did it to great effect, so did Til Death Us Do Part, so did The Royle Family. In some ways, Grandma's House is The Royle Family with chopped liver. In other ways, it is Seinfeld removed to Gants Hill. And the nod to Seinfeld is evident in the character of Simon (Simon Amstell), the presenter of a TV comedy panel show about music, which - just as Jerry Seinfeld played a stand-up comedian called Jerry, a mildly fictionalised version of himself - is precisely what Amstell, the co-writer of Grandma's House with Dan Swimer and erstwhile presenter of Never Mind the Buzzcocks, is in real life. Or was. Indeed, in last night's opening episode Simon announced to his family his intention to quit his TV show, much to their dismay. "In my kalooki group that's all we talk about," lamented his grandma (Linda Bassett).

The other obvious parallel with Seinfeld is that Jerry Seinfeld made it through nine seasons of that phenomenally successful show rarely ever being more than engagingly wooden as an actor. Good acting was the preserve of his brilliant co-stars and so it is here. Amstell barely seems to try to act, just issues his lines semi-mechanically wearing a half-smile, just as Jerry did.

Still, it didn't matter in Seinfeld and, strangely, it doesn't matter here either. Amstell, aided by the sensible decision not to run a laughter-track, somehow makes a virtue of his self-consciousness, and in any case, there are enough pitch-perfect performances, notably from Rebecca Front playing Simon's divorced mother, Tanya, and Samantha Spiro as his aunt, Liz. It helps that the writing, too, is often pitch-perfect. Tanya is being courted by Clive (James Smith), whom Simon loathes, but who is considered highly eligible largely on account of a 42-inch plasma TV on which "you can see every hair of Noel Edmonds's beard". And when Simon's grandpa (Geoffrey Hutchings) breaks the news that he has cancer (an unwittingly poignant detail, given that Hutchings died suddenly last month), it is questioned on the basis that "years ago he found a lump on his testicle and it was a raisin in his pants".

Just as a wandering raisin can be mistaken for a testicular lump, so can a promising first episode be mistaken for a good new sitcom, and I wouldn't like to commit myself too soon. Besides, there are reasons why London-Jewish humour is far less familiar to us than the kind of New York-Jewish humour exemplified by Neil Simon, Woody Allen, Seinfeld and Larry David (whose Curb Your Enthusiasm also has loud echoes in Grandma's House). It is no accident that the Jewish humour British audiences know best and love most has historically been imported, mordant and razor-sharp, from the United States. Nor is it any accident that Jewish characters in British sitcoms are, for the most part, pretty forgettable. It is more than 40 years since Never Mind the Quality, Feel the Width, and not even the warm glow of nostalgia does it any favours.

Simon Amstell's decision to quit as host of Never Mind The Buzzcocks was just about worthy of a few column inches within the showbiz pages of The Sun and the Daily Mirror, but its own sitcom? Apparently so... The opening scene of the sarky comedian's first stab at situation comedy sees him being berated by his family for ditching his lucrative line in insulting pop stars. It seems upsetting Preston from The Ordinary Boys pays the mortgage.

It has to be said that acting isn't exactly Simon's strong point, since he struggles to portray even a convincing version of Simon Amstell. While a fine cast including seasoned humourists like Rebecca Front (The Thick of It) as Simon's mum and Linda Bassett (East is East) as his Grandma put in fantastically accomplished performances, to say that the former Popworld host looked a little out of sorts is something of an understatement.

With all of this self-referencing and ham-fisted stabs at acting, I was expecting to loathe Grandma's House, but it's actually rather good, with some decent gags and - apart from Mr Amstell - a genuinely brilliant cast. Other topics covered in the series opener included the facial hair issues of Auntie Liz (Samantha Spiro) - easily resolved with a roll of Sellotape, it seems; Grandpa (Geoffrey Hutchings) suspecting he has "cancer" (he's peeing a lot); and best of all, mum Tanya's buffoon of a new boyfriend Clive, a barnstorming performance from The Thick of It's James Smith.

All in all the Grandma's House opener offered up more than enough laughs to merit tuning in next week, but one wonders whether it might not be improved with someone else in the lead role. Next time, Simon, cast someone else as yourself.

When Simon Amstell stepped down as host of Never Mind The Buzzcocks, it was a black day for the noble art of taking the mickey out of pop stars - and guests. What, we all wondered, would he do next?

This is it - a sitcom in which Simon plays a character named Simon who is about to break the news to his family that he has decided to give up his TV job of taking the mickey out of pop stars.

Except nobody says mickey, of course: they're allowed to use much, much stronger language on BBC2 than I ever could in a family newspaper.

If this format sounds like it's in serious danger of disappearing up its own backside, don't forget that two of the greatest sitcoms ever made, Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm, also featured Jewish comedians - Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David - playing versions of themselves. And it didn't exactly do them any harm.

Rebecca Front plays his mum, Linda Bassett his grandma and Geoffrey Hutchings is his grandad. And the fly in the ointment of this happy family is mum's new boyfriend Clive (James Smith) - an easy target for Amstell's barbed humour.

How closely this set-up mirror's Simon's own family is something we can only guess at as we admire his grandma's comfortable living room which is all G Plan furniture and ironic splashes of kitsch.

It's not as caustic as Buzzcocks but it's a grower.