James Walton

Of course, most shows which open with the father of three small children killing himself might have felt obliged to remain quite dark for a while. Yet, as it turned out, Mutual Friends is a comedy drama with the emphasis firmly on the comedy. Carl's widow Leigh (Claire Rushbrook) was soon dealing with her grief by speaking in a series of wisecracks. Martin and Jen's decision to go for marriage counselling led to the usual scenes of a wimpy bloke in an armchair saying, 'So how does that make you feel?' a lot. Above all, Patrick is so total a representative of male self-centredness that even in an ITV1 sitcom, he might feel slightly broad-brush.

The odd thing, however, is that the result is by no means a disaster. For a start, the script, written by Anil Gupta and Richard Pinto (Goodness Gracious Me and The Kumars at No 42), seems perfectly content with the fact that it's not pushing back the frontiers of television - and instead gets on with doing the traditional stuff as efficiently and funnily as possible. A strong cast helps too, with Marc Warren in particular showing an unexpected lightness of touch. (Last night he even managed to do the missing-the-school-play scene without going over the top.)

In the end, none of this is quite enough to solve the mystery of why so much talent has been poured into making such a bog-standard TV drama. On the other hand, it does make you fairly grateful that it has.

Scallywagga is definitely put together with a lot of care and a nice sense of visual coherence. Unfortunately, it's gone to all this trouble without getting the script right first. If it was giving a chance to some novice writers, that would be one thing. In fact, it's written by Stuart Kenworthy whose pedigree includes Smack the Pony and Green Wing.

Perhaps, rather than following his instincts, Kenworthy has tried too hard here to give BBC3 what he thinks they want (And, needless to say, he might be right.) Certainly, there's a big emphasis on youth culture, but also a reluctance to attack it with the kind of vigour that might put off the target audience. As a result, the comic punches constantly feel pulled - and what could have been some good dark laughs give way to pale smiles instead.

British Comedy Guide Editor: Stuart Kenworthy actually mentored a number of new comedy writers for this programme, thus this review is not entirely accurate

The first series of Gavin and Stacey was a fairly low-key affair: a BBC3 sitcom about an Essex boy and a Welsh girl falling rather sweetly in love, with the comedy left mostly to their families and respective best friends, Smithy and Nessa (James Corden and Ruth Jones, the show's writers). Before long, though, that same low-key series started to win one entirely justified award after another.

So, the big question on the programme's return last night was how it would react to its own success. The answer, happily, is by not changing much. At times, Nessa and Smithy did seem slightly exaggerated versions of their original selves, but not enough to do any real damage. Otherwise, there was the same winningly good-natured tone, and same clear-eyed tenderness for the characters. Above all, there was the same joyous preference for finding the comedy already present in ordinary life (ie from basically nice people doing their best) rather than inventing some wild sitcom version purely to get laughs.

The first series of David Renwick's Love Soup spent six hour-long episodes following two people who were clearly perfect for each other - but who, teasingly enough, never met. Three years later, series two has now turned up with some bad news for romantics. Far from getting together with Alice (Tamsin Greig), Gil (Michael Landers) has disappeared from the scene completely.

So it is that the show has become largely a one-hander - and, with 30-minute episodes this time, more of a conventional sitcom. Renwick does his usual professional job with the script, and Greig is as good as ever at registering various shades of disappointment. Yet, Saturday's programme, while charming, never really took off.

For one thing, when the chips were down, the professionalism frequently turned into straight sitcom contrivance. For another, some of Renwick's targets felt rather old-hat - such as his satirical observation that the portions of food in nouvelle cuisine are very small.

Most importantly, though, he seems far too much in love with Alice himself. In the first series Gil's job as a TV scriptwriter meant that Renwick could always add a bit of edge by attacking modern television. Without that, and with Alice remaining so utterly lovely, the tone is often surprisingly soppy.

And yet, even this bald summary doesn't suggest quite how desperately hard Honest tried to entertain us. Every moment not packed with some unlikely incident or revelation (and there aren't many) is covered up with perky music, a spot of slapstick comedy, or more usually, both.

I'm afraid The Omid Djalili Show was not as good as the torrent of advance publicity suggested. In the past, Djalili has proved himself a fine comedian, neatly combining his Iranian background with his current status as a middle-class Englishman to explore the two cultures - and, more importantly, to be funny. Saturday's show, by contrast, was just a great big mess.

Going for a Dave Allen mix of sketches and gags, it ended up misfiring on both counts. The sketches were generally overlong, and often uninspired to start with. The stand-up stuff had its moments - but never seemed sure whether it wanted to play with stereotypes or simply rely on them. Djalili still came across as an interesting and likeable man, and as a good actor. Nonetheless, some serious script-editing is badly needed if the series is going to do him anything like justice.

Jack Dee's back with a second series of his (written with Pete Sinclair) hugely enjoyable BBC2 sitcom Lead Balloon.

Dee's portrayal of cantankerous, middle-aged comedian Rick Spleen has more than a touch of a media-class Tony Hancock to it - a character whose talent for digging himself into holes is second only to a grave-digger's.

One of the main joys of Lead Balloon is its small cast of supporting characters, comprising Rick's supremely patient wife (Raquel Cassidy), staggeringly vague daughter Sam (Antonia Campbell-Hughes), their permanently unheppy Polish home help Magda (brilliantly played by Anna Crilly) and his far-smarter co-writer Marty (Sean Power).

Even as minor a role as over-familiar local cafe owner Michael (Tony Gardner) is a perfectly formed, fully drawn character.

Every one of them was on top form, producing a just about flawless half hour of delightfully miserablist comedy. Lead Balloon is sure to go down well again this winter.

Last night's television brought us the sight of Brian Blessed bellowing a serenade at an understandably bewildered old woman in a hospital ward. "Oh, I fancy you like mad!" he then roared at her. This was followed by John Travolta chasing Cliff Richard, who was dressed as a giant leek - while Princess Anne looked on.

Any cabinet ministers watching may well have feared they were having a pot flashback. In fact, though, these clips (and plenty more like them) signalled the return of TV Heaven, Telly Hell on Channel 4.

Television about television is usually dismissed as self-regarding and unimaginative - which might even be true. On the other hand, it's also responsible for some of the most enjoyable programmes around, including Harry Hill's TV Burp and its upmarket BBC4 cousin, Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe.

Mumbai Calling was a pilot for a new sitcom. At this stage, the sit seems promising - but, if there is to be a series, it'll need to work a lot harder on the com part.

Sanjeev Bhaskar plays Kenny Gupta - who, at the start of last night's show, was working in the accounts department of a Jewish family firm in London. (The Jewish element is presumably where Bhaskar's co-writers, Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran, come in.) But then the firm's patriarch, who clearly knew a thing or two about how to set up a traditional comedy plot, decided that his dim nephew and his glamorous but spoilt daughter should join Kenny in running the company's new call centre in Mumbai.

So far, the inevitable cultural clashes have been disappointingly, even lazily familiar. The daughter was surprised to discover that Mumbai is a big messy city instead of the spiritual India of her romantic imaginings. As a special treat, the dim nephew tried to serve the workers a beef dinner.

Both Mumbai and the call centre itself could yet make for an interesting and unusual sitcom setting. If so, however, the script will have to get to grips with it in a much more coherent, as well as a funnier way. At the moment, the result just feels like a slightly plodding drama with a few little (and entirely detachable) gags sprinkled on top.

Nevertheless, City Lights does achieve its basic (and basically noble) aim of being good fun to watch. The dialogue is sharp, the relationships between all the characters believable - and the cast uniformly strong. In particular, it's good to see Robson Green so obviously enjoying himself in the lead role.