Jane Asher

After inauspicious beginnings, this second series of the pleasant, harmless comedy about a couple of old codgers in Beckenham has warmed up. In this fifth episode, Tom (Roger Lloyd Pack) and Roy (Clive Swift) negotiate their only friend Sally's (Jane Asher) stay in hospital, which causes the two men at least as much trouble as it causes her after Tom is waylaid by vanity and Roy by his eagerness to please. Though the jokes are hardly risqué, it moves at pace, and Swift and Lloyd Pack have a snappy camaraderie.

Ageing housemates Tom (Roger Lloyd Pack) and Roy (Clive Swift) continue to trade quick-fire gags in this old-fashioned sitcom. Tonight, Tom gets a surprise when Sally (Jane Asher) turns up asking to use the shower - "God has answered my mad prayer" - but before long she's moving in for the week, causing the men predictable grief.

Tonight's is the best episode so far. Nothing fancy, just well observed, cheekily inventive and full of good lines. I loved Tom and Roy's baffled exchange about scented candles and why women like them so much. I'm sure it's a question that has crossed a few men's minds over the years. The reason for the discussion is that Sally (Jane Asher), the object of Roy and Tom's helpless, hopeless desires, is having her bathroom done, so she comes to stay with them, and they proceed to fall over themselves to impress her with their domestic arrangements. Naturally, they overdo it - nobody really needs kedgeree and kidneys for breakfast. It's such a good episode that even Vincent Ebrahim as Rajan, the pushy local café owner, comes into his own at last, proving to be a love rival and, annoyingly, much better at flirting with Sally. But it's Roger Lloyd Pack as Tom who steals the honours: his roguish old rebel is in danger of turning into a classic.

Building work drives Sally (Jane Asher) into the home of the Pensioners Behaving Badly for a week. As Tom says, "God has answered my mad prayer." While the boys suffocate her with aromatherapy candles, Rajan takes the opportunity to spirit her away on endless dates (great eyebrow work from Vincent Ebrahim). Also contains a heartfelt requiem for TV's golden age, with the speculation that if Peter Ustinov were around today, the only way he would get 70s-style audience figures would be if he were to "ice-skate naked while Ant and Dec fed him koala testicles."

Roy and Tom's wildest dreams actually come true tonight when Sally (Jane Asher) temporarily moves into their house. She's having her bathroom repaired and how can they refuse a damsel in distress? Simon Blackwell has written a gem of an episode as the pair of them go all-out to impress Sally with their five-star hospitality.

Annoyingly though, Sally seems far more interested this week in going off on exciting day trips with cafe owner Rajan (Vincent Ebrahim) who also fancies his chances. It's a simple set-up packed with memorable one-liners. But funniest of all perhaps is Roy (Clive Swift) serving up giant-sized cheese straws, and his rather adorable attempts to avoid hearing any news during the day.

The second series continues of this hybrid of Men Behaving Badly and The Odd Couple. As usual, schoolboyish OAPs Tom (Roger Lloyd Pack) and Roy (Clive Swift) are trying to attract the same woman, Sally (Jane Asher). Roy mocks Tom's flirting technique thus: "That's your pretend laugh. I thought you were choking." I gave a few pretend laughs myself, but some real ones, too.

Jane Asher, Cherie Lunghi and, this week, Tessa Wyatt - the woman who once broke Tony Blackburn's heart. Well, we can see what Roy and Tom's type is when it comes to women: middle-class, actressy types with lovely vowels and no interest in either Roy or Tom.

Having finally accepted that they don't stand a chance with their neighbour Sally, this week the pair decide to break their addiction to her by meeting other women.

As they both end up on the same date with the same woman, the comedy is as corny and predictable as ever, but it's carried along by Roger Lloyd Pack and Clive Swift's considerable boyish charm.

The Old Guys get back on the bus (for free, presumably) for a second series. Written by Peep Show's Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong with The Thick of It writer Simon Blackwell and a cast that includes Clive Swift, Roger Lloyd Pack, Katherine Parkinson and Jane Asher, it oozes class. Series one perhaps didn't quite live up to expectations, but really warmed up over the six episodes. Let's hope that continues with tonight's first episode, as the pair try to win a pub quiz.

Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong are a writing team garlanded with awards for their work on edgy comedies like The Thick of It and Peep Show. They also co-wrote the film Four Lions, Chris Morris's black comedy about suicide bombers. It might seem a far cry from Four Lions to two old codgers, but Bain and Armstrong's likeable sitcom about an ageing pair of ill-matched blokes has the same vein of recognisable absurdity running through it as all their best stuff. As we rejoin Roy (Clive Swift) and Tom (Roger Lloyd Pack), in an episode written by Simon Blackwell, they are eating olives and rice cakes for breakfast while arguing about whose turn it is to do the shopping. The fact that male hopelessness in everything from shopping to romance remains as much a problem in age as in youth is a joke the series plays off well. The pair are still clumsily besotted with their neighbour Sally (Jane Asher) and concerned that she has a new boyfriend ("She keeps going out with men who aren't even remotely us," moans Tom). But now there's a new distraction - a stylish librarian, Barbara, played by Cherie Lunghi.

Moved to a new home on Friday nights, where it's much-needed, the second series of The Old Guys feels as comfortable as a pair of slippers.

Ironically, the first series suffered from the fact that it was created by Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong. Their fans would have been expecting Peep Show for pensioners - and it certainly wasn't that.

It was more like Men Behaving Badly meets One Foot In The Grave. Its sense of humour might be cutting but it could never be described as cutting-edge, and it wasn't trying to be. It was safe, cosy and non-threatening - aimed firmly at the kind of viewers who loved Clive Swift as Hyacinth's husband in Keeping Up Appearances.

Series two finds Swift and Roger Lloyd Pack's flat-sharing Old Couple still lusting after their sexy but oblivious neighbour Sally (Jane Asher) and dismayed that she's found "another bloody boyfriend who isn't us". But there's a new woman on the scene - a librarian, played (improbable as it sounds) by Cherie Lunghi. You can already start to see Jane Asher's glamorous hackles rise and having a bit of competition (even for two men she's not remotely interested in) should put the cat among the pigeons.

This week Tom and Roy enter a pub quiz to prove that age hasn't shrunk their brain cells. And Tom's quest continues to underline how even though they might both be old, he's not as old as Roy. "You did National Service in Caterham," he points out. "I did acid in Wardour Street."