Martin Marquez

Sean Pertwee guest stars this week as an army sergeant drumming up new recruits from among the jobseekers - and having a hot man in uniform in their midst gets the entire staff in a bit of a tizz.

Manager Trish (Sarah Hadland) is making gooey eyes at him, Karl (Russell Tovey) wants to be his new best friend, security guard Paul (Martin Marquez) is put out that he's no longer the manliest man there, and Angela is doing something suggestive with a breadstick.

In her head this is probably seductive but to everybody else it's just disturbing.

Comedian Jo Enright is wonderful again this week as office oddball Angela, and on the receiving end of her unhelpful behaviour tonight is the boss from C4's PhoneShop.

Actor Martin Trenaman plays an estate agent looking for new employment.

Sadly he doesn't want to work in mobile phone retail, but he does spend an awful lot of time on a landline.

Jane Simon, The Mirror, 6th May 2013

I feel ever so sorry for ITV's second new sitcom of the night for having to follow a tough act like Vicious... The Job Lot, set in a job centre don'tcha know, can't help but pale in comparison to the savage brilliance of Ian McKellen and Co.

And that's a shame because while it's not going to win any prizes for originality (League Of Gentlemen's job-seeker sketches set the bar pretty high on that score), it's a perfectly respectable addition to the clutch of office-based sitcoms.

Plus it's from Big Talk, the company that gave us Spaced, Black Books, Rev, Friday Night Dinner and Him & Her, so it knows about sitcoms.

Sarah Hadland, Russell Tovey, Martin Marquez and Emma Rigby are among the staff turning the unemployed into the funemployed, with varying degrees of success.

But the biggest surprise of the night must be actress Sophie McShera being cast as a job-seeker who's turned being work-shy into a something of a full-time career. It's Downton's Daisy Mason as you've never seen her before.

Jane Simon, The Mirror, 29th April 2013

Yes, that is Amy Nuttall in the opening titles tonight. The former Emmerdale and Celebrity Shark Bait star arrives at Babylon as the hotel's latest employee. Well, that's her story anyway. When Ben assumes she's the new receptionist she doesn't bother to correct him, even though the combination of her candy-pink lipstick and Ugly Betty-style braces make him recoil so squeamishly you'd think she was wearing a hat made out of used teabags.

But if he thinks her dress sense is bad, just wait till he sees what hotel owner Sam (Nigel Harman) is persuaded to wear at a baby shower tonight. Oh, Nigel, is this really what you signed up for?

Also checking in tonight is Hugh Dennis, who plays a comedian and an old flame of manager Juliet. And just to underline what a small world acting is, Hugh's on-screen daughter in Outnumbered is played by Ramona Marquez - the real-life daughter of Martin Marquez - Babylon's barman Gino.

Gino's overflowing with wisdom tonight as the hotel is the setting for the funeral of an Italian painter who was one of Babylon's most treasured guests.

As his widow and ex-wife trade black looks, the corridors of Babylon ring out with terrible Italian accents.

But then believability was never this show's forte - which could explain why Scottish actor Clive Russell is cast as the Italian corpse in another five-star farce.

Jane Simon, The Mirror, 7th August 2009