Harriet Walter

Visionary original or specious whimsy? Either way, Will Sharpe's rustic black comedy - which he writes and directs, as well as playing Japanese naif Shun - is completely itself. We are two years on from the first season, and the brittle mental health of author Maurice (Julian Barratt) is threatened by his wife Deborah (Olivia Colman) writing a book about it. Those two, along with Harriet Walter, who joins the cast as a sexually magnetic priest, smother the thought that there's nothing coherent beneath all the wormwoody oddness. Nightly until Friday.

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Heading Out (Tuesday, BBC Two), written by and starring Sue Perkins, was as delightful as it was unexpected. The Sue Perkins persona that is familiar from comedy quiz shows is sharp and confident, whereas the character she plays in this - a vet specialising in cats and dogs who is hopeless at making eye contact, and finds it impossible to come out to her domineering mother (Harriet Walter) - is shy, awkward and wistful. "I feel shame all the time," she said on the subject of being in the closet. "It's like ivy creeping round me."

There were funny lines, too: "People think vets spend all their time with their fist up an arse, but that's only 95 per cent of the job." And to her girlfriend: "Remember that night you made me go cross-eyed? I'm quite keen to repeat that." But mostly this was the comedy of embarrassment and self-deprecation.

Most successful British sitcoms are variations on the same few recurring themes, such as generational conflict (Steptoe and Son, Ab Fab), the cunning underdog taking on the world (Porridge, Blackadder), or dysfunctional friendship (Peep Show, The Likely Lads), but this theme, coming out to your parents, seemed fresh to me.

In episode one, her straight best friend (a nice twist on the Gay Best Friend you always find in romcoms) attempted an intervention, to chivvy her along. Whether this conceit can be sustained for five more episodes remains to be seen, but already I like the characters enough to want to find out.

It's part of Sue Perkins's comic persona that behind the narrowed eyes and serrated wit lies, you can't help feeling, a thoroughly decent sort. Comedy and niceness aren't always bedfellows, but Perkins's stock as a presenter and quiz-show panellist could hardly be higher.

What we have here is more of a gamble: her first sitcom, her first series as a writer and her first venture into out-and-out acting. She plays Sara, a slightly hopeless vet who's turning 40 and still hasn't told her parents she's gay. A key early scene involves a phone call from her mother (Harriet Walter) where Sara finds herself improvising wildly about a fictional boyfriend, a French prosthetics salesman ("Legs mainly, artificial legs...").

This is someone who feels endlessly awkward, or worse: "I feel shame all the time. It's like ivy creeping round me," she tells her best friend. But is that curable? Finding out initially involves a 40th birthday party, a game of netball and a dead cat.

Sue Perkins has become one of the faces of BBC Two in recent years, presenting all maner of food and pop-historical programming. Now she returns to her comic roots in this self-written sitcom, starring as Sara, a successful female vet about to turn 40 - but still frightened to tell her parents (Jeff Rawle and Harriet Walter) that she's gay. Her motley gang of friends set an ultimatum: if Sara fails to reveal her sexuality within six weeks, they will. To make matters even more chaotic, they arrange for her to attend a series of sessions with an eccentric life coach.

In her acting debut, Perkins is likeably beleaguered and sardonic, while there's a strong supporting cast of Nicola Walker (Spooks, Last Tango in Halifax), Dominic Coleman (Miranda), Shelley Conn (Mistresses) and Joanna Scanlan (The Thick of It, Getting On) - not to mention lots of four-legged extras. Guest stars also pop up throughout the six-part run, including June Brown, Steve Pemberton, Mark Heap, Dawn French and Perkins's Great British Bake Off co-host and original comedy partner Mel Giedroyc[/o]. Pitched somewhere between the slapstick Miranda and the sardonic Grandma's House, it's a highly promising, enjoyably daft opener.