Harry Venning

Hosted by Dermot O'Leary, The Marriage Ref invites married couples to air their domestic differences before a live studio audience, while a celebrity panel offers advice and adjudication.

These aren't the sort of grievances that threaten relationships, nor even perverse sexual demands, but quaint foibles about which the panel can make humorous comments. Episode one featured a husband who compulsively pickles vegetables and a wife who communicates by Post-it notes.

The Marriage Ref is frothy, undemanding and, paradoxically, so inoffensive it causes offence. I took against it almost immediately, despite the participation of two fine comedians, Jimmy Carr and Sarah Millican. Unfortunately, the triumvirate was completed by former Spice Girl and UN Goodwill Ambassador Geri Halliwell, a woman who tries to compensate for absence of wit through excessive volume. "You're funny, you're funny," she screamed at Carr. "Yes," Carr snapped back, his own goodwill evaporating by the second, "It's my job."

In an attempt not to appear as irredeemably middle-class as everyone knows it to be, the BBC has set its latest family sitcom, In With the Flynns, among the proletarian masses of Manchester. But the socially downward setting can't disguise the rather tired and traditional format. It is still mum, dad, rebellious teenager, lovable scamps and eccentric relatives exchanging banter in contrived situations, to the accompaniment of inexplicably hysterical canned laughter.

However, the banter isn't bad, there is a definite warmth between the characters and Craig Parkinson shows great scene-stealing potential as dissolute Uncle Tommy.

In part two of the terrifically enjoyable The Story of Variety, presenter Michael Grade investigated television's culpability in killing off variety, and highlighted the attempts of various performers to make the tricky transition from stage to screen.

Tommy Cooper adapted instinctively, Morecambe And Wise succeeded on their second attempt, while Ken Dodd never quite succeeded in shrinking his genius to television's proportions. Ventriloquist Peter Brough and his doll Archie enjoyed tremendous, if inexplicable, popularity on the radio, but a clip from the archive showed why they never enjoyed small-screen success - Brough had failed to grasp a fundamental element of ventriloquism and made little or no effort to disguise his moving lips.

Mrs Brown's Boys isn't so much a sitcom as a full frontal assault on the senses. It is raucous, vulgar, sentimental, loud, infantile, audacious, irreverent, outrageous, inane, frequently frustrating and often hilarious. The jokes come thick and fast, with several circumventing quality control en route and at least one - a naked hand being described as "Sooty in the nude" - deserving a place in the annals of comedy history.

Star and writer Brendan O'Carroll dons drag for the title role - an Irish mammy forever interfering in her adult children's lives. He/she is on screen throughout and it's fair to describe the performance as all-embracing, leaving the supporting cast with little to do but stand, stare and sometimes suppress giggles.

There is an unapologetically old-fashioned, almost music hall, feel to proceedings, with O'Carroll embracing the proud cross-dressing traditions of Les Dawson, Old Mother Riley and the Two Ronnies, but with added profanity.

In another post-modern twist the show deliberately assumes all the conventions of the traditional studio-based TV sitcom, then takes great pleasure in subverting them. Mrs Brown crosses over sets, talks to the camera and even admonishes the live audience for rendering a sympathetic sigh ("It's a man in a dress, for feck's sake").

Episode one left me fully entertained but slightly shell-shocked, harbouring serious doubts that it can sustain such a high level of manic energy for an entire series. We shall just have to wait and see if Mrs Brown wins our hearts, or wears us out.

Leading up to the British Comedy Awards, Comic's Choice invited five celebrated comedians - Alan Davies, Sean Lock, Jo Brand, Jessica Hynes, Lee Mack - to choose a shortlist and winner from among their own personal past favourites. Bill Bailey played affable host, something he does effortlessly.

Forgetting for one moment the universally acknowledged truth that no comic truly enjoys any laughter they haven't themselves produced, the show's premise was flimsy in the extreme. Not to mention confusing - Alan Davies nominated Chris Morris as Best Breakthrough Act for work done in 1994.

Davies also took part in a film recreation of an unsuccessful audition he once attended, as gratuitous a piece of padding as I have seen in a long time. This lack of coherence was reflected in the meaningless studio set design which threw together leather armchairs, old boilers, stuffed elk heads and bicycles combined to create the effect of a gentleman's club located in a garage.

Basically Comic's Choice was yet another excuse to disinter old archive clips instead of producing fresh comedy. Although, having said that, the archive clips were rather excellent, so I'm not complaining too loudly.

Well, who'd have thought it of Hattie Jacques. According to BBC4's latest showbiz biopic Hattie, the celebrated comedienne, played by Ruth Jones, conducted quite a carry on of her own back in the sixties. Married to the actor John Le Mesurier, Jacques took a lover ten years her junior and proceeded to move him into the family home as their lodger. Upon discovering the infidelity, Le Mesurier declined the invitation to move out, choosing instead to swap his bed for that of the boyfriend and become cuckold/lodger in his own house. A bizarre compromise that satisfied no-one.

As always with BBC4 biopics, the period was beautifully recreated and the performances top notch, but I never came close to comprehending the characters' behaviour. Nor did I like any of them, although Jones' worked hard to show Jacques charming side. Perhaps Hattie can best be understood and appreciated as a triangular love story fuelled by selfishness, shallowness and cowardice. Not a bundle of laughs, it must be said, but gripping in its own warped way.

Say what you will about BBC Drama, they do a very nice line in showbusiness biography. Written by Peter Bowker and based upon an idea by Victoria Wood, Eric and Ernie, exploring Morecambe and Wise's formative years, was one of the best I've seen.

The casting was spot on. Daniel Rigby and Bryan Dick were not just vocally and visually uncanny as the duo, they captured every mannerism and even reproduced their comic timing. Most remarkable of all, their recreation of Eric and Ernie's stage act came over as fresh and genuinely funny.

To see the two great comedians resurrected so comprehensively was almost sufficiently thrilling, but it would be a shame to allow the virtuosity of Rigby and Dick's performances to obscure a beautifully crafted, poignant, witty and gentle drama about friendship, family and showbusiness struggle.

"Big head, short legs" was the young Eric's initial reaction on meeting Ernie Wiseman, already a star on the West End stage and celebrated as "Britain's Mickey Rooney". But from inauspicious beginnings a firm friendship grew, out of which sprang their double act.

Victoria Wood played Eric's pushy mum Sadie, vicariously revelling in her son's onstage success, with Jim Moir - you know, Vic Reeves - as her long suffering and overlooked husband George.

Bob Monkhouse never inspired universal public affection the way Morecambe & Wise did. Indeed, he once simultaneously topped opinion polls as Britain's most and least popular performer. The one thing everyone did agree on was Monkhouse's professionalism.

The Secret Life of Bob Monkhouse told the comic's fascinating story, with help from the vast archive of films, albums, cuttings, clips and journals he obsessively collected throughout his life.

Included amongst them was a compelling recording of Monkhouse presenting The Golden Shot, having been unfairly sacked, when anger, bitterness and disappointment very nearly got the better of his professionalism on live TV. Rare footage indeed.

Frankie Boyle has a reputation for being outrageous, and his new C4 show, Frankie Boyle's Tramadol Nights, certainly didn't disappoint. No sooner had the comic bounded on to the stage than he was ridiculing an audience member for looking like "a dead baby drawn by a child" and describing the Pope and Susan Boyle as "two people who look unconvincing in a dress". Running themes included paedophilia, anal sex, masturbation, mental illness and drug abuse.

The show is a mix of stand up, sketches and an animation called George Michael's Highway Code in which we see the celebrated singer not paying due care and attention to the road as he indulges in various practices I feel are best left to your imagination.

Boyle's stand-up is characteristically assured and hard hitting, peppered with astute and acerbic observations. He is also disarmingly likeable.

However, the sketches are less consistent, undermined in no small part by the star's inability to act his way out of a paper bag. Pastiches of The Green Mile and Knight Rider went on far too long, taking their initially amusing comic concepts to the very edge of tedium.

On the whole, however, this is a very funny show. Was I offended by the material? Not really - Boyle really must try harder.

The Incredibly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret stars David Cross as a bumbling, ineffectual US middle manager given to outrageous bluffing, who is mistaken for a hard ass sales dynamo by his sociopathic boss. Promoted way beyond his capabilities, Todd is subsequently sent to the company's London office to spearhead a campaign promoting a toxic Korean energy drink in the UK.

On arrival he finds his office dilapidated, his luggage blown up by anti-terrorist officers, unrequited love with a kind hearted cafe owner and his entire sales team consisting of a solitary, bone idle assistant who delights in challenging and undermining what miniscule authority he has.

The first thing to say about the show is that it doesn't skimp on energy or jokes. But the energy is unfocused and the quality of the jokes fluctuate wildly throughout, depending heavily upon contrived, slapstick set pieces. Moreover, Todd's trademark haplessness frequently topples over into outright irritating, never an attractive quality in a sitcom lead character.