Martin Clunes

Just when something seems to be going right for Reggie Perrin, another area of his life falls apart. Last night's episode saw his new product range become a storming success, just as his wife Nicola was finally pounced upon by David. And like Reggie's life, the sitcom itself is inconsistent and unpredictable.

For roughly half of last night's thirty-minute episode, the acting and writing conspired to create a genuinely funny sitcom. However, the other half of the programme slipped into mediocrity, failing to be either amusing or true-to-life, both of which are qualities that form the whole basis of Reggie Perrin.

The division lines between funny and not-funny fell along the breaks between scenes that were set in the Groomtech offices and those that weren't. The acting is so terrible and the sets so cheap-looking inside Groomtech headquarters, that even the script seems to disintegrate when brought to life by the likes of Vicki the receptionist.

Martin Clunes was, as usual, the only breath of gravitas and humour in such scenes. He makes every shot look and feel classier, even when he's forced to play out wholly unfunny scenarios, like last night's attempts to persuade his mother that Geoffrey didn't want to marry her anymore.

Outside the Groomtech headquarters, Faye Ripley and Alexander Armstrong also belonged to the classy sitcom and their interaction in the swimming pool rang true. But back in the office, we were faced with the shoddy half of the programme again, as Reggie was forced to attend therapy sessions with the corporate wellness lady.

The show just doesn't seem to be able to decide what it is: a third-rate sitcom with shaky sets and flat characters, or a snappy comedy, well written and superbly acted. A schizophrenic sitcom; now there's something for the wellness lady to get her teeth into.

Most sitcoms don't bother with a "Previously on" reminder at the start, but Reggie Perrin is different. It has turned into a sort of serial farce, with Reggie's existential woes played out each week amid far-fetched plot twists. Now that Reggie's in charge at Groomtech, putting banana milk in the watercoolers and taking the workforce carol-singing are the least of his new departures: he has also launched a product range so suicidal (men's fragrances smelling of "shed" or "Sunday lunch") that we assume he's trying to sabotage the system from within - or is he just going quietly mad? Martin Clunes is skilful at keeping us guessing, and even when the script takes the path of least resistance (a bit too often), he can generally carry a scene with his tone and timing alone. But lordy, we could do without that daffy corporate wellness woman.

Fay Ripley's praise will be music to Clunes' ears

Fay Ripley says she is 'not a nice person' unlike her Reggie Perrin co-star Martin Clunes.

The longer it goes on, the more Reggie Perrin feels like a sad, slightly surreal drama that's become trapped in the body of an old-fashioned sitcom. Martin Clunes manages to hide the joins by making the most embittered, world-weary lines come across as faintly lovable: "Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly," muses Reggie in tonight's instalment, "Modern man gotta eat his own entrails." It's one of several lines that jump out at you. Reggie's experiment with bailing out of his misery-inducing career isn't going well: "That's the trouble with living for the moment, isn't it?" he observes. "It b****rs up the next moment." His version of living for the moment involves oil painting, therapy (with daffy Sue from Groomtech) and baking bread. Meanwhile, at Groomtech, changes are afoot, giving Jim Howick as Anthony a chance to shine.

Oh dear, Reggie Perrin (BBC1) is back. The remake with Martin Clunes. No, no, no, no, no. It's not actually even that bad, just a very bad idea. Anyone who knew - and inevitably loved - the original, will wonder why the BBC is scarring the memory of what was a brilliant sitcom (and how can Clunes hope to fill Leonard Rossiter's shoes?). Younger people will probably wonder why they're making a lame old 70s-style sitcom with a laughter track, and jokes you can see coming as clearly as you can see what's going on in Reggie's mind (that trick's not funny any more, by the way). Comedy has moved on. Look at the best comedy on TV now - Him & Her, and The Inbetweeners, of course. It's not just because they're filthier and closer to the line that they're funny; it's because they're more believable, they reflect the world we live in, they're relevant. Reggie Perrin doesn't, and isn't. And someone at the BBC is showing a depressing lack of imagination by commissioning it. I suppose the fact that it's been recommissioned means plenty of people are watching, too. That's also depressing.

Reviving Reggie Perrin wasn't a great idea when it came to the first series. The fact that the BBC has gone in for a second stab is even more mystifying. In truth, if you were a fan of it last year, you probably still will be. Not much has changed: the whiff of My Family, Martin Clunes's perpetually incredulous expression (remind me again why I'm doing this?), the decade-old can of laughter. The question is, was anyone a fan of it last year?

Either way, last night went something like this: our hero, titan of middle management, awoke to realise that flogging male grooming products was not, as it turns out, what he wanted to do for the rest of his life. And so he resigned, very publicly, displaying the sort of flamboyance that would make an internet prankster proud. And then he commenced, briefly, life as a pioneer of self-sufficiency. He drew pictures of a marrow, played with some wood and made his way down to the job centre all by himself. Along the way there was a stint as a shelf-stacker, a bout on the psychotherapist's couch, and the news that Reggie's father was soon to marry his mother-in-law. Meh.

The satirical news-based panel game has been running since 1990 and is now in its 40th series. The first guest host to face the crossfire from Paul Merton and Ian Hislop is the Sherlock actor Benedict Cumberbatch; later in the series, Jeremy Clarkson and Martin Clunes will take the chair. The first guests to join them tonight are writer and presenter Victoria Coren and comedian Jon Richardson. We can also expect to see James Blunt, Nick Robinson and Ross Noble later in the series.

Martin Clunes returns as the thin-skinned middle manager forever chafing at his role in the world. At the end of last series Reggie had reached the end of his tether: "I had this big crisis because I have the wrong life," he tells his wife tonight, by way of explaining his disappearance and near-suicide. Suffice to say, she doesn't greet his return with open arms. As this series opens we see that he ended up lying asleep on a beach wearing all his shirts at once and dreaming of his own funeral (flowers spell out his name as a vicar mourns "a butterfly broken on a wheel"). When he awakes, he is a new man. "I'm happy now, and rational. Life is beautiful," he announces blithely, before quitting his job as razor supremo at Groomtech to conduct "an experiment in self-sufficiency". If that sounds as though the series is about to veer into the territory of another much-loved 1970s suburban sitcom, don't worry: Reggie soon finds that whittling twigs into cutlery isn't necessarily The Good Life.

A midlife crisis is a luxury you can't really afford in the middle of a recession. Ditching your well-paid cushy number when jobs are going down the dumper all over the shop can't help but smack of self-indulgence. So where does that leave Reggie Perrin, apart from pulling daft faces at the man from the JobCentre?

In an odd way, the economic mess we're in has given this remix of the classic 1970s sitcom a leg-up. Though Martin Clunes is still a touch too cuddly as crashing and burning everyman Reggie, his character's decision to chuck it all in and find himself, having decided there must be more to life than disposable razors, now has more of a cutting edge. When having a job, any job, has been elevated to Holy Grail status, turning your back on all that seems almost heroic. Daft, but heroic.

Having decided suicide was not the 'one last defiant gesture to a hostile world' Reggie was looking for - yes, this is a comedy - the second series finds him trying to extricate himself from the cares of the material world. Thus far it's mission impossible, with a cash crisis giving him a sharp reality bite. But, though laughs are regrettably infrequent and the ranks of back-up characters piled high with weary clichés, there's something about Reggie that keeps you hanging on in hope.

That's because, in our idle moments, who hasn't wondered what would happen if one day you just decided: 'OK, that's enough, stuff the career, let the mortgage hang itself, I'm going to do something worthwhile with my life!'? And then decided against it, knowing full well you'd end up watching Jeremy Kyle in slightly soiled pyjamas.

If there's anything more surprising than the BBC deciding to remake The Rise And Fall Of Reginald Perrin, it's that they decided to plough on with series two.

Martin Clunes received a mixed reception as an updated incarnation of the melancholic middle manager but we rejoin him now on a beach where he has gone to resolve his mid-life crisis. Having decided against death (faked or otherwise) as an exit-route out of his daily grind, he makes a momentous decision to resign and utters the immortal words to his Groomtech boss: "You can take this job and stuff it up your a***."

As Reggie walks away from the cut-andthrust world of disposable razors to embark on a brand new life of self-sufficiency, it's a constant struggle for him personally and for the series as a whole to shake off the ghosts of the past - not only Leonard Rossiter's original, but another 70s sitcom giant, The Good Life. So referencing the US sitcom Mork and Mindy probably doesn't help either in that regard.

On the positive side, it's not without its laugh-out-loud moments, especially when his wife Nicola (Fay Ripley) explains why she's jobless too.