Jessica Hynes

The glorious return of the BBC's self-flagellating sitcom, whose second series begins with a one-hour special. Ian Fletcher (Hugh Bonneville) and co prepare for the impending royal visit of the Prince of Wales. Elsewhere, Jessica Hynes's viciously stupid Head of BBC Brand, Siobhan Sharpe, attempts to mash-up the Beeb and Wimbledon, Entertainment Format Producer David Wilkes (Rufus Jones) has a title but not a show, and lovable doofus Will the intern might just have solved everyone's problems by possessing a sister.

John Morton's affectionate satire of the inner workings of the BBC makes a welcome return. It has been accused of failing to go for the jugular, but that was never the intention. It's not about attacking the BBC, just as Twenty Twelve wasn't about attacking the Olympics.

According to Hugh Bonneville, it could just easily be about the NHS or Whitehall. "It's about satirising management structure and management speak," he says. W1A has two obvious and outstanding qualities. The first are the characters, all of whom are hideously recognisable and superbly performed.

Jessica Hynes steals the show as the grotesque PR supremo Siobhan Sharpe, but nobody in the ensemble cast puts a foot wrong. My personal favourite is Neil Reid's Controller of News & Current Affairs played by David Westhead, but there's a gem of a performance in tonight's hour-long episode from Andrew Brooke as the BBC's incompetent head of security.

It's other great quality is the dialogue, which sounds so natural that it feels improvised. Not so. "Every um and er - every odd word you hear - is there intentionally," says Bonneville. Because of this, the cast have to rehearse like an orchestra to get the rhythm right. "You spend your entire day running lines, running lines, running lines," says Bonneville.

The Casebook of Max and Ivan is a new, daft comedy series from Max Olesker and Iván González that boasts some top supporting talent (June Whitfield in the first episode, Reece Shearsmith, Matt Lucas and Jessica Hynes coming up). It's a sprightly, silly show that reminds me a little bit of Milton Jones (though not as surreal), and when everyone calms down a bit, it'll be very good.

Radio Times review

This week the Banbury craft circle's day trip to London is thwarted because women are banned from the train after the escapades of a more militant suffragette group. After a little slapstick from Jessica Hynes involving a bike nicknamed Lady Agatha, they don cunning disguises: mutton chops, walrus moustaches and bushy beards.

But the best gags are those that come with a wry wink: "In a hundred years' time when women are trouser-wearing voters," declares Margaret, "we'll be evaluated on our wit, not our waist-size."

Radio Times review

The prim Banbury suffragettes endeavour to "trek across the foothills of ignorance" and "ascend the slopes of injustice", inspired by real-life American mountaineer Annie Smith Peck. How? By distributing an uncompromising leaflet.

Once again, writer and leading lady Jessica Hynes proves mistress of the double entendre: cricket boxes, stiff whites, and fluids for her colossal new Kodak camera. Rebecca Front is delightfully withering as resolutely un-emancipated Helen, while Judy Parfitt is superb as worldly Myrtle. What's lacking are belly laughs; more often than not the gags are as gentle and mild as the Banbury Intricate Craft Circle Politely Request Women's Suffrage group's politics.

Radio Times review

The tiny band of women who make up the Banbury Intricate Craft Circle Politely Request Women's Suffrage group think it's time to increase their number.

Gung-ho leader Margaret (Jessica Hynes, who created and co-writes Up the Women) has planned a rousing speech aimed at the village's downtrodden women workers. But none of them turns up to hear her rallying cry.

I can see that Up the Women's heart is in the right place, and it means well, but its few laughs are superficial and it feels underpowered. Still, the cast, notably the ever-splendid Judy Parfitt, a star of the memorable 1974 Suffragette drama Shoulder to Shoulder, here playing a mischievously lascivious aristo, has a high old time.

Up the Women review

Overall the offers some some good fun, with silly characters that all bounce off each other well. Jessica Hynes has done a fine job of satirising such a serious part of history, and it offers a nice change from the mob of chat show and stand-up based comedy of recent BBC times.

Radio Times review

I suppose this suffragette sitcom should be described as "gentle", meaning "it's not very funny but watching it won't kill you". It started life on BBC Four back in 2013 and now comes to BBC Two, where it remains a solid, old-fashioned, one-set, studio-bound comedy centred upon the 1910 Banbury Intricate Craft Circle Politely Request Women's Suffrage group.

Their well-meaning leader Margaret (Jessica Hynes, also co-writer) urges her little band of friends to go on hunger strike in sympathy with their imprisoned sisters. But Margaret becomes obsessed by the very thought of "buns", while Gwen (Vicki Pepperdine, unrecognisable with a set of rabbity teeth) brings industrial quantities of cheese to the village hall.

Jessica Hynes on her suffragette comedy

I wanted Up The Women to feel like a classic sitcom, almost as if it had always been here.