Mark Gatiss

An amazing lineup of comic actors have a ball playing historical figures in therapy opposite Rebecca Front's ever-patient psychologist. Julia Davis puts a new twist on the poetry of Sylvia Plath. Samantha Spiro is a ping-pong Audrey Hepburn, Mark Gatiss a superb Joan Crawford to Frances Barber's inspired Bette Davis. Katy Brand stars as one of three sweary Brontë sisters. It's the comedy equivalent of eating a lot of biscuits. If you miss it you will forgo the funniest thing on TV this year.

Rounding off the Playhouse Presents... series, this five-part comedy sketch show makes itself comfortable on the couch for a witty variation on the therapist theme of HBO's In Treatment. Rebecca Front anchors the action as a long-suffering psychoanalyst whose appointment diary is lit up by a galaxy of stars from yesteryear, as played by some of today's finest acting talent. Stand-out headcases include Frances Barber and Mark Gatiss as Bette Davis and Joan Crawford (in Whatever Happened To Baby Jane mode), Sam Spiro (Grandma's House) as irrepressibly cutesy Audrey Hepburn and Julia Davis (Hunderby) conjuring comedic magic by mixing poet Sylvia Plath's tragic angst with the simple jollity of Pam Ayres.

After a promising pilot last year, this fitfully funny set of vignettes based around famous women visiting a therapist (Rebecca Front) returns as a series. Boasting comedic talent such as Sharon Horgan, Samantha Spiro, Julia Davis, Katy Brand and Mark Gatiss - dragged up as Joan Crawford - it's a riot when it does very silly: Sylvia Plath channelling Pam Ayres in an attempt to lift her dark moods; the squabbling, doll-sized Brontë sisters, and Jacqueline du Pré communicating only via cello.

This Playhouse Presents... production from last year returns for a series, boasting the same strengths and weaknesses as its pilot. It's undeniably pretty slight - the single, running gag is seeing absurdly exaggerated caricatures of famous historical women visit Rebecca Front's modern shrink and flaunt their entertaining neuroses. But the joke is carried through with enough conviction and élan to make it pretty entertaining.

Tonight's highlight is Julia Davis's turn as Sylvia Plath - but a Sylvia Plath who, concerned that her creativity might be compromising her mental health, is considering adopting the poetry stylings of Pam Ayres. Elsewhere, there are foul-mouthed Brontë sisters, an infuriating Audrey Hepburn and the endless bitching of Bette Midler and Joan Crawford. The cast is excellent - Davis, Front and Sharon Horgan are now augmented by Frances Barber and Mark Gatiss - and they're clearly enjoying themselves too. Good fun.

You can't libel the dead, which will be great comfort to Sky's lawyers as the Playhouse pilot from last year is expanded into a complete series.

Rebecca Front stars as a ­psychotherapist with a patient roster that reads like a Who's Who of famous women from history.

This show totally undermines the feminist message of the BBC's Up The Women, which Front also stars in, by depicting all females of achievement as neurotic loons. Still, one thing women have always been good at is laughing at themselves. I hope.

The make-up and wardrobe departments really excel ­themselves here. The joke works even before Bette Davis and Joan Crawford (Frances Barber and Mark Gatiss) open their mouths.

The squabbling Bronte sisters are brilliant, just as Samantha Spiro makes for a ­wonderfully convincing Audrey Hepburn.

And Sylvia Plath (Julia Davis) doing a Pam Ayres in an attempt to rid herself of demons is inspired. This must also be the first time that tragic cellist Jacqueline du Pre is treated as a figure of fun.

It shouldn't work, but it does.

Psychobitches, stars Rebecca Front as a therapist whose patient roster consists solely of famous women from throughout history. Essentially an excuse for a fast-paced series of disconnected sketches, this simple premise is only semi-successfully executed by co-writer/director Jeremy Dyson from The League of Gentlemen.

Resembling a surreal parody of the great In Treatment, the series begins with a neat visual gag involving Rosa Parks - I suspect that's the first and last time I'll ever place those words in that order - before roaring into gear with Front's Grandma's House co-star Samantha Spiro delivering a pitch-perfect evisceration of Audrey Hepburn's irritatingly kooky screen persona.

Unfortunately, it then devotes far too much time to a mirthless series of Brontë sisters sketches - no, it wouldn't be hilarious if they were portrayed as gruff, foul-mouthed northerners - and Julia Davis as Sylvia Plath, which, while beautifully performed, hammers its one joke into the ground. Elsewhere, Frances Barber and a dragged-up Mark Gatiss (Dyson's League of Gentlemen cohorts crop up throughout the series) sell the hell out of a warring Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, but without banishing memories of French & Saunders' superior take on their feud. The only other sketch that really takes flight is Sharon Horgan as a glamorously self-obsessed Eva Peron.

As an excuse for a cast of talented, funny women to show off their versatility, Psychobitches is a success. But reducing Front to a straight role feels like a waste of her abilities, which merely adds to the overall air of mild disappointment.

A welcome return for the second series of Alexander Kirk's bittersweet stand-alone comedies of grown-up men who live with their mothers. This first story stars Mark Gatiss as a hopeless Michael Jackson impersonator who gets voted through to the second round of a TV talent competition just because the British public wants to laugh at him. Does this sound painfully familiar?

Living with Mother (Radio 4, 11.15pm) brings more four comic gems about sons who don't leave home (a subject once dear to my heart and probably many another). Meet Marlon (Mark Gatiss) who has entered a talent contest. Helen, his mother, (Susan Jameson) warns him. But does he listen? It's by Alex Kirk, whom I strongly suspect of canny eavesdropping around our house in recent years.

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Mark Gatiss among cast of Living with Mother series two

Doctor Who writer joins an all-star cast including Brigit Forsyth, Tom Goodman-Hill and Alison Steadman in the returning Radio 4 comedy.