Harry Venning

I have seen several episodes of Taking the Flak, the BBC's satire upon their own foreign correspondents, and it has yet to become embedded in my affections.

The characters are in a world in which grieving relatives and photogenic orphans are at a premium, shots to camera must be accompanied by just the right amount of hand wringing and two minutes on Newsnight fully justifies any and every act of misconduct during filming.

The BBC had enough faith in Taking the Flak to bankroll location shooting in Kenya, and they have been rewarded with a self-assured, amusing and original comedy with more than a whiff of authenticity about it. Plus any show with Doon Mackichan among the cast is, by definition, a very good thing.

However, the characters simply fail to engage, or even surprise. Perhaps we have seen too many television comedies recently about the wacky world of television, populated by jaundiced and manipulative self-serving cynics, to care any more.

Apparently Monday Monday has spent a couple of years gathering dust on ITV Drama's shelf prior to broadcast. It is difficult to understand why, as this eight-part comedy drama is nothing if not likeable.

An ensemble piece, Monday Monday follows the lives and loves of white collar staff at a recently relocated supermarket chain.

It is hardly the most innovative or challenging of dramas, but it has charm and humour to spare and a top notch cast that includes Holly Aird, Jenny Agutter and Fay Ripley. Miranda Hart, comedy actress du jour, has a minor role, which gives you an idea of how long ago the series was made.

Ripley, an actress I have developed an irrational aversion to, is actually very good as Christine, an ex-alcoholic working in human resources who is totally lacking in any resources of her own.

Would I Lie To You? is yet another comedy quiz show, this one inviting the usual assortment of stand-ups and guest celebrities to tell convincing fibs. It is Call My Bluff basically, replacing words with deeds.

It is very cheap and cheerful fare that depends almost entirely on the charm of those involved. Rob Brydon is the genial host, David Mitchell and Lee Mack the suitably contrasting captains, and they are do what is required of them with frightening efficiency. But the formula pokes through like the ribs on a starving man, and I found the whole show somewhat depressing.

One thing did intrigue me, however. In a show about deception how come nobody pointed out the miraculous reappearance of a full head of hair on the recently thinning Brydon?

As BBC comedy ambles aimlessly around in search of a magic sitcom formula, balancing the innovative with the tepidly inoffensive, CBBC just gets on with the business of making funny shows for its young audience. The latest is Roy, set in a Dublin suburb and concerning the misadventures of a young lad who just happens to be a cartoon.

Filmed in the style of a documentary, episode one followed Roy's first week at a new school trying to integrate amongst his live action school mates.

"Academically he's unexceptional, but I think you'll find him very‚ animated," the headmaster warns Roy's teacher, who is unaware that she will be taking part in an educational experiment.

Most of the pupils are thrilled at the novelty of a classmate who can make butterflies pop out of his stomach, but others are less than impressed and Roy soon attracts the attentions of a pair of bullies. "He's a cartoon, get over it," snarls one little girl at the camera. "And not a very good one at that." He is, indeed, a very badly drawn Roy.

Roy raises serious issues about the treatment of people who are regarded as different, but the points made are skillfully integrated into the comedy and never allowed to intrude on the fun. Charming, moving, clever and very funny, Roy is a joy.

As part of their Grey Expectations season, BBC4 gave an hour of airtime over to Nicholas Craig, the greatest luvvie of his generation, to present an acting masterclass on How to Be Old.

Topics covered included keeling over, speaking in "auldshire", bronchial coughing, creating a doddery walk and dealing with rowdy juveniles, all illustrated by an excellent array of TV drama archive clips.

In between exploring career options for the third-age thesp, Craig rails against such diverse personal and professional bugbears as Strictly Come Dancing, whingeing actresses, having to wear one's own clothes in Casualty and his youthful assistant producers, Lucy and Octavia: "I've slow-roasted joints of pork longer than she's been in the business!"

Craig is a brilliant creation, beautifully scripted by Christopher Douglas and played to perfection by Nigel Planer. Despite this, the subject matter for this particular outing was a little too thin to support an hour and there were occasional tell-tale signs of padding.

But this is a little churlish, given the many moments of pure delight, such as Craig's explanation of how the Spotlight Directories work: "Spotty is divided into sections. There's Young, where you'll find all the middle-aged actors. Leading, for older actors. And Character, for very old, ugly actors."

I am a big fan of TV critic Charlie Brooker, both in print and on screen. As his BBC4 show Screenwipe proved, no one else spews vitriol with such wit, charm and amiability. C4 obviously thinks so too, and has given Brooker his own TV based quiz show, You Have Been Watching.

And Brooker doesn't disappoint. He's as sharp, insightful and snide as ever. The problem is with the format, which foists three guests upon him. As they are nowhere near as funny as the host, their presence first becomes a distraction, then an irritation.

Much the same can be said about the quiz aspect of the show, which is treated with such bored disdain by Brooker that it makes you wonder why they bothered with it at all.

Get rid of the guests, get rid of the quiz and you would have something worth watching. Namely, Screenwipe.

However You Have Been Watching did unearth some splendid clips of bizarre television around the world, the best of which was from a blood-drenched combat recreation show pitting history's warriors against each other - Zulu versus William Wallace, Apache versus Ninja, culminating in the IRA taking on the Taliban in a car park. For the record, the IRA won.

Set in a geriatric ward, naturalistically performed and filmed in a spartan, documentary style, Getting On might not sound the most inviting of comedies. Do not be misled.

Written by and starring Jo Brand, Joanna Scanlan and Vicki Pepperdine, Getting On is a gem of a show that somehow succeeds in being by turns cynical, compassionate, depressing and life-affirming. And funny. Did I mention funny?

Sean Lock co-wrote and narrated TV's Believe It Or Not and I doubt if he'll make easier money this year.

A cut and paste collection of TV's more bizarre moments, punctuated by snide comments from Lock, the show was yet another tribute to the researcher's art.

We were invited to relive horrors, obscure and familiar, including Loyd Grossman's rock band, the man on Nationwide who claimed he could walk on eggs (he couldn't), MP Christopher Mayhew taking Mescaline on a 1956 edition of Panorama, Fanny Cradock committing career suicide and, best of all, Oliver Reed's alcohol-fuelled appearance on late-night discussion show, After Dark.

Lock thoughtfully transcribed Reed's exact words: "If somebody that knows no ill comes to a Palais de Dance and tickles his heels in the air because he's a Celt, how do you forgive yourself because he's a better dancer?" How, indeed, Oliver? How indeed?

It is possible to have too much macabre weirdness in one programme. Created, written and largely performed by Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton from The League Of Gentlemen, Psychoville is an exercise in just how far you can push dark comedy.

To this end the pair have assembled a rogues gallery of grotesques, scattered them the length and breadth of the country, and set a mysterious blackmailer on their trail. "I know what you did," ran his first anonymous correspondence to the seemingly unconnected group and, without even knowing what they're accused of, you wouldn't put it past them.

Psychoville is definitely an acquired taste, and I'm afraid my appetite was sated halfway through the second episode, with the introduction of ghoulish conjoined twins with symmetrical facial blemishes. For me it was a case of two freaks too far.

It is very well done, atmospheric and beautifully performed, but the misanthropic tone of the humour is relentless and, after a while, a bit tedious. The introduction of a little shade would have been welcome, even different shades of black.

Personal Affairs doesn't seem to know what it's supposed to be. Combining elements of comedy, mystery and romance, but without ever being funny, intriguing or romantic, Personal Affairs' heroines are five go-getting gals working as personal assistants in a high-powered City brokers firm.

Episode one introduced itself with a flurry of Ally McBeal-style fantasy sequences, but these quickly and inexplicably petered out once the main characters were established.

Storylines comprising varying degrees of idiocy followed soon after, the most prominent of which was the disappearance of ultra efficient PA Grace which, in my opinion, was a very smart move on Grace's part.

Personal Affairs clearly imagines itself to be frothy fun in the spirit of Sex and the City, but it produces all the effervescence of an autopsy. The acting is pantomime posturing, the script is a wit-free zone and the lead characters chronically underwritten. Even the ever-reliable Mark Benton looks bad in it.