Jack Dee

Washed-up comic Rick Spleen has more reason than usual to look sour. One of his wife Mel's clients is nominated for three comedy awards, while Rick remains stuck in the steerage class of showbiz, scrabbling for scraps of work. Tonight he auditions for a car wax advert - and doesn't get it. "This is a global thing I'm up against," he blusters unconvincingly. "I'm just laying low until China kick-starts the whole thing, then I'll be up and away." But fate has another plan, and Rick is offered a wonderfully low-rent gig presenting on a shopping channel, a chance he seizes with both hands. Jack Dee gets across Rick's slightly desperate excitement about his new job brilliantly and delivers another slow-build, touchingly absurd episode.

I can remember the great Irish stand-up comic Dylan Moran once saying that whenever you are having a discussion with a German, all that you are thinking about when they talk is: "Yeah, yeah, Hitler, Hitler, Hitler, Hitler, Hitler..."

In the same way, I suspect that many people watch Jack Dee's Lead Balloon while for most of the time they are thinking: "Yeah, yeah, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Curb, Curb, Curb Your Enthusiasm," and perhaps throwing in the occasional, "Larry David" for a bit of variety.

I myself have never been the biggest Lead Balloon fan, but it was funny in parts. One subplot of the opening episode was of failed stand-up Rick Spleen (Dee) trying to write a book, a scenario which did make me chuckle when Dee asked if, "They sell books in Lidl?"

The actual main plot was Spleen preparing, or rather hijacking, a Sunday Times interview featuring his wife, and trying to make himself more interesting by getting a pet pig. The main scene near the end featured Spleen trying to get the pig out from underneath a table which was amusing... at first... and then the pig shat on him.

Now I don't mind toilet humour, but I am of the view that excrement is a much funnier when it is talked about rather than appearing on screen. The scene was too disgustingly graphic to be funny for me.

Another desperate bid to salvage his career sees Rick (Jack Dee) take a presenting job on a downmarket shopping channel - much to his wife Mel's (Raquel Cassidy) bemusement, and writing-partner Marty's (Sean Power) unconcealed disdain. On the other hand, housekeeper Magda (Anna Crilly) is seriously impressed by Rick for the first time ever... Beautifully observed, this sitcom is full of quiet exasperation.

Back for a new series, BBC2's excellent Lead Balloon continues to be what most sitcoms aren't... funny. ­Supported by a fine cast, Jack Dee delivered a timely reminder that incontinent pigs can mess up your showbiz career. We need more Lead Balloons... and fewer Life Of Rileys.

Old friends Liza Minnelli and Graham Norton have a lot of catching up to do.

She's been on his show numerous times before but the last time was on V Graham Norton way back in 2003 when she came with her then husband David Gest. A lot of water has passed under that particular bridge since then...

With a new CD to promote, Liza kicks off a tour at the Royal Albert Hall at the end of this month, with dates in Europe and Las Vegas - and she'll be singing tonight.

Joining her on the sofa is Shameless actor turned Hollywood star James McAvoy, who'll have all the goss from the new X Men movie in which he plays the young Professor X, and Lead Balloon star Jack Dee completes the line up.

When Jack Dee is only the third most interesting person on the bill, you know you're in for a good show.

Now this could be fun, because tonight a trio of really disparate guests make themselves comfy on the sofa: Jack Dee, James McAvoy and drum roll Liza Minnelli! We know how much Norton loves a gay icon, judging by his glee at recent appearances by Bette Midler and Lady Gaga, but surely Minnelli beats them all. She talks about her life and career, of course, and also sings live. It will be delicious to see what she makes of Jack Dee, promoting a new series of his doleful sitcom Lead Balloon, in that often uncomfortable juxtaposition of a megastar and a cheeky British comedian they've never heard of (remember Maggie Gyllenhaal's bewilderment when faced with Russell Howard?). Bona fide Hollywood action man McAvoy (hasn't he come a long way since Shameless?) will discuss his role in the latest X Men movie, X Men First Class.

Review: Lead Balloon, Tuesday 10pm, BBC Two

While brand new must-see sitcoms seem to be a little thin on the ground on terrestrial TV, several popular series are quietly plodding along in the background - and gradually becoming very welcome small-screen mainstays in the process. One such example is Jack Dee's Lead Balloon, which has just entered its fourth series on BBC Two.

Review: Lead Balloon, BBC Two

It's been more than two and a half years since the third series of Jack Dee's comedy about a comedian. Everyone in Rick Spleen's world looks a little bit older, a mite more pinched and drawn, as if proximity to the man about the house is draining the blood out of its occupants. Time has not at all been kind to Rick himself (but then when was it ever?). His temples are awash with grey, his skin is sallow with failure, and his self-important delusions seem ever more steeped in bitterness and malignity. I for one have missed him dreadfully.

Jack Dee was born with a scowl. Which is pretty much all you need to know about Lead Balloon (BBC2), the sitcom in which Dee does his middle-aged moany thing, although he's pretending to be a failed comic called Rick Spleen.

It's an act that's so familiar by now that all returns have diminished, though Lead Balloon does give the excellent Raquel Cassidy the chance to air her full range of withering scorn. Aside from her, Lead Balloon just goes down like the proverbial.

Jack Dee's sitcom returns for a fourth season. Not much has changed, and that's not a bad thing. This is a show that follows an effective routine, in which Dee's Rick gets some crazy notion into his head then parades it in front of his family, friends and neighbours as they bring him slowly back down to earth. This week, wife Mel is picked as the subject of a Sunday supplement piece and Rick tries to hijack it for some press for himself. It's up to his sarcastic writing partner, stoner daughter, depressed maid etc to deflate his ego.