James Fleet

Preview: Tracy Ullman's Show series 2

This week sees the return of Tracy Ullman's Show to BBC One, with the first episode airing on Friday 3rd February at 9:30pm. As with the first series, a bevy of TVO regulars are involved: this time around Dan Skinner, Tracy Ann Oberman, Lucy Montgomery and Laurence Rickard are part of the impressive ensemble cast. But is the end result worth a look? TVO editor Paul Holmes took a sneaky peek...

Billionaire Boy was a New Year's Day treat on BBC One. Adapted from the children's book of the same name by David Walliams, it told the story of Joe Spud, whose father becomes an billionaire overnight after inventing a new type of toilet roll.

It was very well done - funny, smart and entertaining in the best tradition of classic family comedy films such as Richie Rich or Home Alone, and packed with excellent lines: when Joe commits a minor misdemeanour in the Spuds' new mansion, his father responds with: "Go to your rooms!"

The cast were brilliant, especially Elliot Sprakes in the title role. Catherine Tate was hilarious as the celebrity hand model Sapphire Diamond, Rebecca Front and James Fleet were effortlessly funny as put-upon teachers at Ruffington school (motto: "Doing the best we can"), Warwick Davis was a butler and Walliams himself made an appearance as Mrs Trafe, the world's worst dinner lady, whose offerings included onion mousse, cold pilchard soup and kidney custard pie.

Jim Rosenthal commentates on son Tom's comedy Plebs

The sports presenter is joined by Simon Callow, James Fleet and Friday Night Dinners' Paul Ritter on series two of the ITV2 sitcom.

Monks is hard to get Revved up about

Tonight, BBC One airs Monks, a comedy pilot in which Seann Walsh plays benefits cheat Gary who has joined a monastic order in an attempt to evade the fuzz. Co-starring James Fleet as the Abbott and Mark Heap - doing a good Mark Heap - as the Monk who hates Gary it's... it's... well it's OK. But it does seem to smack of a return to the bad old days of religious-based comedy.

Radio Times review

Daily life chez Lord Emsworth is always a little irregular but when neighbour Colonel Fanshawe (James Fleet) and his lovely daughter Valerie (Sophie Colquhoun) visit, it's even weirder than usual.

The indecipherable Scottish head gardener is blasting away at some pesky rabbits, Beach is falling asleep when he's not being overly familiar to his employers and Freddie's trying to teach Mugsy the pug how to juggle.

At times the jokes veer into Carry On territory: "He's indicated his intention to retire on the grounds of black tongue fever contracted up the Yangtze" and "He's frightened of dogs because he was badly bitten in the Khyber," should give you the idea.