Isy Suttie

This week, in Sky's showcase for emerging talent, Isy Suttie, AKA Peep Show's Dobby, co-writes and stars in a short, surreal "musical", Miss Wright, about a cafe worker besotted with a railway station employee. The songs don't help. Better is Aphrodite Fry, scripted by seasoned playwright Sarah Solemani of Him & Her, about a Brighton artist disappointed by an extremely short sexual encounter with a local businessman, who hatches a plot to mete out the same treatment to his colleague: to "come and go", so to speak.

Isy Suttie (Peep Show's Dobby) kicks off tonight's brace of romantic comedies as Miss Wright, a café waitress whose amorous fantasies break out into song whenever a certain ticket collector puffs into view. In Aphrodite Fry, Sarah Solemani (Him & Her) stars as a mural artist for whom a brusque one-night stand leads her to contemplate the shortcomings and goings of life. They make a sharp and funny pair, with splendid support turns from Rebekah Staton and Rosamund Hanson.

It's a pleasure to see talented writers and performers given their head in this Sky short film strand. The format offers freedom but demands concision and invention too - tonight's offerings from Isy Suttie and Sarah Solemani exploit the opportunity gleefully.

First up is Suttie, starring as dopey, charming dreamer Bella - working in the café of a tiny train station, challenging the romantic pragmatism of her boss, friend and rival Jenny (Rebekah Staton) and occasionally, bursting into song. As a cheerful musing on small towns and crap jobs, it packs plenty into its 25 minutes.

Then at 9.30pm there's Sarah Solemani's Aphrodite Fry. Stung by the poor sexual etiquette of a one-night stand, Aphrodite sets out to prove that women can 'cum and go' too. For this purpose, she selects an apparently charmless partner (Alex Price's Bobby, a man whose dreams are to 'make lots of money and meet Mike Tindall'). But inevitably, she discovers frailty and humanity within this unpromising raw material.

Both films are slight and not without their flaws and self-indulgences, but they overflow with charm too.

Isy Suttie interview

Comedian, musician, actress and Peep Show star Isy Suttie has co-written and also stars in tonight's new Sky Living Love Matters one-off - the romantic musical comedy Miss Wright.

Another impressive double-bill of one-off comedies about modern love opens tonight with comedian actress Isy Suttie (Peep Show) starring in Miss Wright, which she co-wrote with Fergus March. Using her signature shtick of comedy, storytelling and song, Sutie plays Bella Wright, a waitress in a train station cafeteria who has a crush on the platform guard, Jim (Alex Carter). Even better is Aphrodite Fry, written by and starring Sarah Solemani. She plays eccentric, boiler-suit-wearing Aphrodite, a Brighton artist who after an unfortunate sexual encounter decides to tackle gender inequality in her own way.

Two sitcom one-offs launch another Sky comedy season of new work. The first, called "30 And Counting", features two friends trying to help their broken-hearted chum get an internet date and feels a little old-fashioned. At 9.30pm, the second - "Officially Special" - is lifted by Katherine Parkinson's central performance (as a world records official with a crap love life), and some pretty good writing. Miss Wright (starring and co-written by Isy Suttie) is the stand-out of the series. Look out for that on 4 April.

As the 11th series of Shameless trundles on, Chesney (Qasim Akhtar) employs pharmacist Remona to run a chemist concession at Chesco's, though her Islamic fundamentalism soon begins to worry the shopkeeper. Elsewhere, Patreesha (Jacqueline Boatswain) makes a discovery as she tries to get sister Avril a job at the car wash, and the police come after Kassi (Jalaal Hartley). At least an arrest might mean more screen-time for his wife Esther (Isy Suttie), who's been a welcome addition to the show's frankly bonkers final run.

Isy Suttie interview

The standup, who plays Peep Show's Dobby, on her two new shows examining affairs of the heart.

It's the final episode of this post-watershed comedy about four male friends who meet once a week for a night out in Stockport. The humour has tended towards the obvious, although the lead characters are a likeable enough bunch. Tonight, Glyn (Craig Parkinson) messes up the lads' plans to go to an important football match between Manchester United and their home town Stockport County. Meanwhile, Daz (Stephen Walters) decides to propose to Colleen (Naomi Bentley), and enlists the help of her kooky housemate Bev (Isy Suttie, Dobby in Peep Show) to help to spring the surprise.

Is it the recession? The Tories? The procession of fresh-faced ob-coms filling the O2 with their jaunty musings on social-media etiquette and supermarket self-service checkouts? Who knows. But there's little doubt that what older readers will recognise as alternative comedy is undergoing a mini-renaissance. Alexei Sayle has returned to stand-up and this new series sees Stewart Lee, who has flown the flag through alt.com's fallow years, introducing comedy from The Stand in Edinburgh. It's simultaneously refreshing and frustrating.

Tonight's opener features Isy Suttie, David Kay, Boothby Graffoe, Henning Wehn, Glenn Wool and David O'Doherty. But not for very long: at half an hour, and with ads and six comedians per show, it means approximately one and a half gags each - although the same half-dozen will be returning for more across the 12-part series, which showcases a total of 20 stand-ups. It's great to see more marginal comic turns getting exposure, but frustrating that we aren't allowed to see them in full flow, at least tonight.