Harry Venning

God forbid I am ever diagnosed as terminally ill, but if it happens I shall be buying the complete series of Off Their Rockers and watching it on an endless loop. It wouldn't actually make my life last any longer, but it would certainly feel like it.

Off Their Rockers is a hidden-camera show featuring elderly pranksters preying upon young targets. It is a novelty that wears off pretty quickly, and the little interest I had in the show disappeared entirely after 12 minutes exactly. I know because I made a point of looking at the time.

But then I hate hidden-camera shows. In fairness, several of the set-ups were inventive - the out-of-control mobility scooter and helium balloons taking flight pushed proceedings into the realm of the mildly amusing - and the performances of the cast were excellent.

However, the nature of the comedy is predictable and repetitive, and with the trailer for the second episode promising to rehash several scenarios from the first, it is fair to assume things won't be getting any better.

The Security Men was a one-off comedy thriller about a quartet of feckless shopping-mall security guards, who, following a raid on a jewellery store under their protection, decide to re-stage the robbery to disguise their own incompetence. Actually, they aren't entirely feckless, as Brendan O'Carroll - escaping from under Mrs Brown's skirts - is given plenty of 'feck'-peppered dialogue to deliver.

Written by Caroline Aherne and Jeff Pope, The Security Men started out promisingly but ultimately disappointed on almost every level. It needed either more time to build up the characters, plot and tension or less time, so it could have focused solely on the better jokes. It was neither thrilling nor funny. But, for all its shortcomings, I feel a spin-off series coming on.

You'd think that after 16 years and 28 episodes, Jonathan Creek might itself creak a little - how many more variations on the locked-room mystery can there possibly be? - but nothing could be further from the truth.

Plenty of fun is still to be had from the deliciously contrived plotting, melodramatic scenarios, star turns in supporting roles and sharp scripts peppered with neat comedy touches. Who cares that some of the exposition is so tortuous it borders on actor abuse?

A feature-length special, The Clue of the Savant's Thumb waits a full 15 minutes before the show's magician/sleuth hero makes an appearance. Instead, viewers are treated to a suitably overheated flashback preamble, set in 1968, involving sadistic nuns, hysterical teenage girls, stigmata, drug-induced visions and an unexplained death at a gothic mansion turned convent school.

And this was just the warm-up to the main event, in which the blood-drenched corpse of a legendary television producer disappears from the aforementioned locked room.

Alan Davies once again provides the calm centre around which all the mayhem revolves, with Joanna Lumley linking two of the three mysteries - writer David Renwick is never less than generous with his plotlines - and Rik Mayall still managing to deliver his trademark, wildly over-the-top performance, despite being cast as a wheelchair-using detective paralysed below the neck.

I have now watched three episodes of It's Kevin and I'm still not sure if it's funny. Kevin Eldon's sketch show is certainly odd, with moments of brilliance, but the set-ups are invariably more inspired than the pay-offs, and Eldon's studied air of deadpan detachment walks a fine line between quirky and irritating.

But half an hour in the company of Eldon's imagination is never wasted, plus he's been shrewd enough to surround himself with an impressive array of comic performers, including Julia Davis, Liza Tarbuck and Adam Buxton.

Sadly, it looks as though there will be no second series of Life's Too Short, but my favourite comedy of 2011 enjoyed a last hurrah, thanks to a one-hour special that addressed many of the faults, and played to the strengths, of its first run.

Gone were the gratuitous physical humiliations visited upon star Warwick Davis, along with the David Brent mannerisms bequeathed him by writers Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant.

Instead, Davis was given free rein to explore the comic potential of his complex, conflicted and constantly embattled character. Rosamund Hanson provided scene-stealing support as dippy secretary Cheryl.

Extra helpings of guest stars playing either unflattering or unsympathetic versions of themselves were also served up. Shaun Williamson, Keith Chegwin and Les Dennis all made a welcome return - "Three Z-list celebrities make one D-list celebrity," encouraged Davis as they embarked on their All Star roadshow - with a surprise appearance from the former Hollywood star and one-time screen Batman Val Kilmer.

With an enthusiasm that bordered upon self-flagellation, Kilmer portrayed himself as a slightly deranged fantasist and maniacal con man who raises, and then shatters, Warwick's dreams of a sequel to Willow.

Painfully poignant, beautifully played and constantly inventive, this one-hour special conclusively proved that Life's Too Short's own end was also premature.

TV review: Jonathan Creek; It's Kevin; Life's Too Short

Reviews of Jonathan Creek, It's Kevin and Life's Too Short.

Plebs is a new ITV2 sitcom set in Ancient Rome that follows the misadventures of a low-born trio of 20-something office clerks. Wilfully anachronistic in its dialogue and soundtrack, the series got off to an energetic, engaging and amusing start with a tale of unrequited love, exclusive parties and unassailable doormen.

Bluestone 42 is a comedy about an army bomb disposal unit in Afghanistan - so full marks all round for originality. The script and cast also merit a mention in dispatches for successfully and consistently mining laughs from such an inhospitable comic landscape. The show balances sharp one-liners with knockabout vulgarity to impressive effect, and deserves to win a large audience.

So far, gritty authenticity hasn't featured hugely on the show's agenda. In tone, it is far nearer It Ain't Half Hot Mum than The Hurt Locker, with moments that make soldiering in the Helmand province look like a Club 18-30 holiday - albeit with firefights and no swimming pool.

However, the very subject matter would suggest that Death and his sidekick Debilitating Injury are waiting in the wings to make an appearance, and it will be fascinating to see how Bluestone 42 copes with manoeuvres into comedy's dark side.

Sue Perkins has written and stars in BBC2's new sitcom Heading Out, concerning the adventures of a 40 year-old lesbian vet - that's to say a gay veterinarian rather than a veteran gay - who has yet to come out to her parents.

Some of the support characters are drawn far too obviously to exist as anything other than comic relief, but otherwise Perkins' script is a good one. The plot is clever, the dialogue amusing, and at least one of the sight gags is unforgettable. Plus, it's refreshing - not to say revolutionary - to have a sexually active, lesbian lead character in a sitcom.

The problem, however, is Perkins' acting - namely, that she doesn't bother attempting any. Every one of her lines is delivered with exactly the same sardonic deadpan the comedian usually reserves for panel shows, interviews and TV bake-offs.

Which would be boring but bearable if Heading Out didn't harbour ambitions to belong to that trickiest of genres, the romantic comedy. Perkins' flirtatious banter requires a nuanced performance to steer a course between arch and embarrassing. Nicola Walker, totally wasted in an undemanding best friend role, would have done it brilliantly.

"I don't disturb you when you're working, do I?" snaps stand-up comic Jimmy O at a Comedy Store heckler. "I don't come in the alleyway and knock the cocks out of your mouth."

Having honed his craft on the Northern club circuit, Jimmy is attempting to move into the lucrative cruise ship business where the atmosphere is a lot less adversarial, but the audience is older and more conservative in its tastes.

"I'm not happy with any shades of blue," warns Richard Sykes, cruise director of the Ocean Countess as she navigates the Hebrides. "Also, please don't abuse the passengers."

Jimmy will have to tailor his material accordingly. But the question is, will he have any material left?

Funny Business followed Jimmy on-board his new, floating stage, as well as exploring the phenomenal growth of an industry in which variety acts - and comics in particular - are in big demand.

The programme interviewed bookers, agents and veteran performers such as Tom O'Connor and Nicholas Parsons, who all expressed enormous enthusiasm for this once-derided but now burgeoning home for live entertainment. Meanwhile, they acknowledged the fundamental problem facing the industry - how to appeal to a younger, edgier market without alienating the established clientele.

Hired to test the waters but without making waves, so to speak, Jimmy O is on something of a hiding to nothing, but his act doesn't do him any favours. Witty, personable and charming among the passengers on deck, Jimmy sacrifices all three to a stage persona that isn't so much slow burn as catatonic.

He gets laughs, but not many, and cruise director Richard is further enraged at being short-changed by 25 minutes for a 45-minute slot. Which, given Jimmy O's speed of delivery, translates into about ten minutes of actual material. His booking is immediately terminated with a ruthlessness Captain Bligh would have approved of.