Jo Enright

The Job Lot, which, while nowhere near as sharp as Vicious, is a perfectly amiable and amusing sitcom set in a drab job centre (is there such a thing as a bright, welcoming job centre?).

Despite being a single-camera comedy with no laugh-track, it's essentially a traditional sitcom populated by dysfunctional characters and daffy situations. It is, however, blatantly influenced by The Office, not because it's a workplace comedy - Gervais and Merchant didn't invent that genre - but because of the exceedingly Tim-like lead played by Russell Tovey. A bright, likeable everyman trapped in a job he detests - his feelings for an attractive female colleague stop him from leaving - the similarity is compounded by the fact that Tovey appears to have partially based his acting style on Martin Freeman.

While Tim-bot 2000 is mildly distracting, he doesn't detract overall from a show which, given the danger inherent in its recession-fuelled premise, mercifully refrains from sneering at the unemployed. Granted, one of the regular job-seekers is portrayed as a harmless oddball, but it's significant that the villain of the piece is a rude, sadistic and actively obstructive job centre employee played by the excellent Jo Enright.

This character has an obvious antecedent in the monstrous Pauline from The League of Gentleman. She also shares a few genes with Little Britain's "Computer says 'No'" grotesque. And yet despite these visible origins, Enright imbues her with a distinctive, deadpan venom.

What this all adds up to is a derivative yet serviceable sitcom with a smattering of potential. But it undoubtedly succeeds in being an ITV sitcom that's Not Appalling. I still can't quite believe it and Vicious exist at all.

Back for a second series, for those not aware of the show on the digital channel Dave, each episode of One Night Stand takes place in the hometown of the closing act.

These kinds of show only really use the town as a backdrop - a selling point for the show - and in this case stand-up and Direct Line advertiser Chris Addison performed in Manchester.

Also starring was Addison's co-star in his failed sitcom Lab Rats Jo Enright, who impressed with her talent for impersonation (and pigeon noises); and Craig Campbell, who was arguably the best performer on the night.

Campbell's a great storyteller, with tales of rude song lyrics, tripping on mushrooms and killing badgers. It's really quite a shame Campbell isn't British because he deserves to be the star of his own episode. Jason Cook also filmed for this episode, though his set - and an interview with Chris Addison - is only available online.

A new series in which comedians perform a gig in their home town. Really, the gig could be anywhere - other than a quick introduction in Manchester city centre there's nothing particularly illuminating. It's as if they started the show with a clear premise then decided they couldn't be bothered to go through with it. Addison's stand-up is all about whining about everyday stuff, and the audience love it. He's joined by comedians Jo Enright and Craig Campbell (respectively from Birmingham and Canada) to continue ignoring the Mancunian theme.

We've always like Dave's idea of having comedians perform in their home towns - it means the series produces an amusingly skewed travel guide to Britain. To kick off season two, Chris Addison (of The Thick Of It and the Direct Line ads fame) performs at the Palace Theatre in Manchester with a set that references the city's attacks by the IRA, its crappy weather and its status as the home of Britain's tallest skyscraper outside London ('on a clear day it can be seen by ten counties. And when we get a clear day, we might be able to prove that'). Canadian Craig Campbell and the titchy Jo Enright support.

Dave's stand-up challenger to Live at the Apollo returns with Chris Addison - now known as that bloke off the Direct Line adverts - returning to his home town of Manchester (which apparently you shouldn't get wet or feed after midnight in case it changes into Liverpool) to play a gig at the Palace Theatre. His rants about the internet being "the most passive-aggressive force in the universe", the stupidity of Ugg boots and people who say "the thing about me is " are both angry and incredibly funny. He's joined by hirsute Canadian Craig Campbell and the diminutive Jo Enright, who manages to get a few good laughs out of her poor Irish mammy.

Interview: Jo Enright

Jaffa Cakes, Sainsbury's, Nescafe. Actress turned stand-up Jo Enright has voiced ads for them all. The 42-year-old has also appeared in TV ratings winners such as I'm Alan Partridge, and Ideal, with Johnny Vegas.

Five questions for... Jo Enright

A short interview with the Lab Rats star

Having starred as government advisor Ollie Reader in the brilliant political satire The Thick of It, Chris Addison now gets a leg-up on the comedy ladder with his own prime-time sitcom.

Addison helms this likeable, madcap comedy as Dr Alex Beenyman, head of the Arnolfini Research Laboratory at St Dunstan's University. Naturally, not a single member of the lab has the first clue how to do their job. Professor John Mycroft (Hyperdrive's Geoff McGivern) has just spent the laboratory's budget on a huge statue of himself on horseback, slaying dragons.

Dr Beenyman's principal concern is that his white lab coat has just been dyed pink. He worries this makes him look 'gay', though his nitwitted colleague Brian Lalumaca (Dan Tetsell) and his hapless Brummie lab assistant Cara McIlvenny (Jo Enright) insist it's actually his hair that looks gay. Pandemonium is triggered by the visit of a Russian geneticist, Dr Kyrtistyges (pronounced 'Curtis Stigers', and played by Sevan Stephan), who's having trouble cloning his grandmother. The lab promises to fix the problem, but instead creates a gigantic snail.

The result is a catalytic reaction of Red Dwarf
and The IT Crowd, in a solution of Are You Being Served? And it's not a bad formula.

What better place to try to reinvent the studio-based sitcom than in a science laboratory? If you're stuck for the next surreal joke or lethal punchline you can always just set about whipping one up in a Petri dish.

Your man in the white coat here is Chris Addison (who played the hapless special adviser Olly Reeder in The Thick Of It) and co-wrote this with Carl Cooper.

His co-workers - including Selina Caddell, Jo Enright and Dan Tetsell - all come from the school of You Don't Have To Be Mad To Work Here, But It Helps.

And perhaps science-fiction lab would be a better description of the setting because this is a place where pretty much anything is possible - cloning, giant molluscs - anything really, except hiding your chocolate from your workmates.

Childishly inventive and frequently just silly, it's not a bad first impression.