Isy Suttie

"Come on fate! This can't be right!" pleads Mark as Peep Show's merciless writers find new ways to humiliate him - this time by making Super Hans his boss. Mind you, it's never hard to make Mark (David Mitchell) feel angry and defeated. Dobby manages it just by giving him a couscous salad to take to work - or "My Tupperware box full of tasteless misery sand", as Mark prefers to think of it.

The couple's wildly different priorities are illustrated by the fact that Dobby (Isy Suttie) wants the pair of them to go inter-railing for a few months, while Mark would rather be taking evening classes for an MBA. It's another sharply written, horribly funny episode.

I think the best way to start the review of this programme is with the following statement: Peep Show is better than Father Ted.

I know that according to Channel 4's Greatest Comedy Show Father Ted's is better, but it's wrong. It's merely more popular. Peep Show's funnier because of the writing, the plot devices, the innovative camera work, the quality of the performances and the darkness of the humour and characters. Peep Show may never have attracted more than 2 million viewers for a single episode, but the quality of it stands.

Peep Show returned with its usual mix of darkness and desperation, thanks to the struggling lives of flatmates Mark and Jez (David Mitchell and Robert Webb). At the start of this series, Mark is trying to get Jez out of the flat so his love Dobby (Isy Suttie) can move in. Mark's plans are so desperate; he even thinks breaking Dobby's microwave will help. Also, Mark gets a job tip from - of all people - Super Hans (Matt King), Jez decides to undergo therapy, and the health of Mark's love rival Gerrard (Jim Howick) takes a turn for the worse.

There's so much to like in this opening episode, including Jez's somewhat paranoid display when he attends his therapy session, to the horrifying consequences which result when Mark tries to prevent Isy from seeing Gerrard. One interesting plot device which seems to be sprouting is Jeff (Neil Fitzmaurice), now living with Sophie (Olivia Colman), getting a bit too close to Mark's baby son Ian for his liking...

Part of the enduring appeal of Peep Show (Sunday, Channel 4) is that you want to believe that Mark and Jez are exaggerated versions of David Mitchell and Robert Webb, the comedy partners who play them. Actually it is written not by them but by Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong (though Mitchell and Webb do provide some "additional material").

Whether or not they are like their characters perhaps doesn't matter. What is important is that those characters don't have anything in common apart from their shared flat. Mark is pessimistic, conservative and neurotic; Jez is feckless, uninhibited and shallow.

After almost 10 years, and eight series, Peep Show still feels quite subversive and edgy. The stylistic device the show pioneered - of using point-of-view shots with the thoughts of the characters audible as voice-overs - still seems fresh and it is surprising that this has been so little imitated. (There's Miranda, and that's about it.) There was a wonderfully timed moment in the first episode when Mark and Jez were having a back and forth argument which Mark ended in his head, having the last word.

To bring their story up to date: Mark is now a father, though he is not with Soph (Olivia Colman), the mother. He is trying to gets Dobby (Isy Suttie) to move in with him and get rid of Jez in the process. Jez is still unemployed and has been persuaded to see a therapist, whom Mark pays for. The humour is as black as ever, with Mark being annoyed with a rival suitor for winning sympathy by dying. My favourite line from episode one: "A squirt of Lynx: the busy man's shower."

Peep Show still feels relevant, capturing well one aspect of the aspiring but doomed middle classes. Though they are in some ways a conventional flat-sharing "odd couple", they both need each other because they like to think there is someone who is even more of a loser than they are. In many ways Jeremy is a child - a hedonistic and casually cruel one. Mark is easier to identify with. Most of us are more connected to our inner Mark than our inner Jeremy, though we would like it to be the other way around.

The award-winning sitcom returns for an eighth series after a gap of two years. Starring David Mitchell and Robert Webb as a flat-sharing odd couple (as the original tagline put it, "two very ordinary weirdos") the show, written by Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain, has never attracted a mainstream audience but retains a dedicated cult following and deserves its reputation as one of the best sitcoms around. It is also the longest-running sitcom in Channel 4 history.

Despite the long interval, we pick up exactly where season seven left off - with Mark (Mitchell) trying to eject Jeremy (Webb) from the flat in order to install his love interest Dobby (Isy Suttie). But neither seems eager to comply with Mark's plans. In fact, Dobby is more concerned for the welfare of Mark's chief love rival Gerrard (Jim Howick) who's milking a flu attack for all its worth; while Mark's efforts to move Jeremy on by funding some psychotherapy sessions prove predictably futile. Meanwhile Super Hans (Matt King) has traded in his musical ambitions for a job in a bathroom fittings firm and suggests Mark try out for a position there too - something he's determined to go for even when tragedy intervenes.

Isy Suttie: A geeky girlfriend who rewrites the rules

Isy Suttie talks about the joy of playing Peep Show's Dobby.

Isy Suttie: 'I'd love to work with Victoria Wood'

She's a trained musician and wanted to be a singer. But when people laughed at her silly, twisted songs, Isy Suttie took up comedy. Brian Logan talks to the Peep Show star about her brutal new show.

A welcome return for the panel show hosted by Charlie Brooker that looks for the worst in everything and spins it into comedy gold. For example - your ideas, please, for the most appalling concept album? I'll leave you to insert your own ideas there and introduce the panellists: reliable Lee Mack; rising Scottish comic Susan Calman (a News Quiz regular); and the "who he?", Daniel Maier (answer: a writer on Harry Hill's TV Burp, so no slouch when it comes to gags).

You'll laugh your socks off - and future episodes are also worth catching, with guests including "the Legend" Barry Cryer, Graham Linehan (Father Ted) and Isy Suttie, doleful Dobby from Peep Show.

Where are all the female stand-ups?

Male stand-ups still dominate our TV shows, the live circuit, and last night's Chortle awards. Why? Sarah Millican, Josie Long, Isy Suttie and others give the inside story.

Comedian Isy Suttie tells the story of how her pen pal Dave met this girl called Pearl at Butlin's - a place where "within two hours of arriving you can get chips or felt up" - and their tentative attempts at hooking up via Facebook and Skype. On paper it has the whiff of one of those dreadful Simon Bates Our Tunes, but this is funny, perceptive and none the worse for its songs and old-school vibe. In contrast, Suttie briefly relives one of her own relationships, comparing it to an old sick dog who's continually fed sugary biscuits to keep it alive. A cracking little show, making you yearn for a longer set.

Interview: Isy Suttie

An interview with Isy Suttie, Stand up comedian, actress, writer and musician.