Matt Berry

There's Matt Berry the comedy actor and Matt Berry the singer of progressive folk - mossy, mulchy stuff that sounds like it was recorded in a forest den, in pointy green felt boots, in 1968. The curtains of hair and Department S moustache we know and love from the comedy give the impression of a younger man but not much of one. At large in 1971, perhaps. But Berry's time is right now and Toast Of London is his first lead role.

I didn't love The IT Crowd as completely as you lot but I did love Berry's Douglas Reynholm, the part-bionic, Scientology-parodying sex-pest boss. In Toast Of London he's Steven Toast, deluded actor. Deluded actors make terrific subjects - Hancock's Half Hour, obviously, but also Chewin' The Fat's Ronald Villiers. So far, we haven't seen Toast tread the boards and maybe that's how this will go, with all the drama happening off-stage.

The opener mainly concerned romantic entanglements, beginning with his attempts to disentangle himself from a posh psycho and ending in a failed bid to seduce an alcoholic journalist. There were two fantastic gags that owed a lot to the props department. To the posho: "Oh, I thought you said you were a bee-keeper." Her: "No, a beak-keeper - I collect beaks." The journo, on the other hand, collected everything. Toast couldn't get into her pants because he couldn't get into her flat, junk filling the doorways apart from tiny spaces at the top which he was too portly to squeeze through - even when down to his black singlet. Promising.

The memorable climax to the pilot episode involved booming actor Steven Toast (Matt Berry) trying to record the word 'Yes' again and again for a voiceover. Tonight's episode returns him to the recording booth, where he has to sing "I've Got Rhythm" for an advert, but repeatedly proves he hasn't. ("We'll go again," sighs the director.)

It's the prelude for a ludicrous plot that milks the most from Berry's ability to turn a tone of voice or a disconcerted look into comedy gold. Toast is a wonderful creation even when the script wanders a little, in this case from the trials of booking an escort to the perils of rehearsing with a director who once killed an actor on a production of Pinter.

Some people are just funny. And it's long been clear that Matt Berry is one of them. It's all in the voice modulation and expressive bafflement - witness Steven Toast's voiceover humiliation at the start of this second episode for a perfect illustration. As usual, the plotting is gloriously daft - tonight, Toast finds himself working with luvvie nemesis Ray Purchase and homicidal director Acker Heron.

But as usual, much of the fun is to be found in the the incidentals. Toast books a prostitute ('I saw your number on the computer') and invents a new name for himself on the spur of the moment. Toast attempts to play frisbee with some muscular Australians. And Toast sings a bizarre duet with a mini-me to conclude affairs. Toast of London remains a light, even slight concoction. But that doesn't make its occasionally inspired silliness any less enjoyable.

Meet Steven Toast

Steven Toast (star of C4 sitcom Toast of London) treats us to a few hazy anecdotes from his days as a novice on the razzle.

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Occasionally you see a sitcom you love so much you want to hug it, slap it on the back and buy it a round of drinks. For people who warmed to last year's pilot for Toast of London, it's that kind of comedy. Now Matt Berry's brilliant creation, a conceited old-school actor called Steven Toast, has been given a series where Berry and co-writer Arthur Mathews can let their disturbing mix of theatreland spoof and surreal bedroom farce run rampant.

From the very first exchange ("I thought you said you were a bee-keeper?" Toast asks a conquest: "No," she replies sweetly, "A beak-keeper - I keep beaks"), the inventive oddities tumble out, notably in the form of Kikini Bamalaam, daughter of the Nigerian ambassador and latest partner of Toast's friend Ed. A botched cosmetic procedure has left her looking (very disturbingly) like a Generation Game Bruce Forsyth.

There is a contingent of comedy fans - the really knowledgable ones with the excellent taste - for whom a little-seen BBC3 show from 2006 called Snuff Box represents the peak of British television. Matt Berry, who co-starred in and co-wrote that absurdist dark comedy, set in a gentlemen's club for hangmen, also stars in and co-wrote Toast of London. So is it the second coming we've been waiting for?

Slightly less knowledgable comedy fans, with slightly less excellent taste, may remember Berry as Douglas Reynholm in The IT Crowd or Dixon Bainbridge in The Mighty Boosh, but in this he finally takes the lead, playing portly middle-aged actor Stephen Toast, a role that allows full use of his booming voice. In the opening episode it was all going well for Toast: his agent, Janet Plough (Doon Mackichan), told him he'd won an acting award from a gossip magazine after 28 years in the biz, and women seemed to find him irresistible. So what if one was on bail for attempted murder and the other throws shopping trollies in canals for fun?

Where Snuff Box blended sketch, songs and character into something brand new, this felt more familiar sitcom territory - Toast even shares a bachelor pad, Men Behaving Badly-style, with Ed (Robert Bathurst). Yet while the "sit" was traditional, the "com" definitely wasn't. When Toast's flatmate brings home a conquest, it's not Leslie Ash from next door, but the Nigerian Ambassador's daughter, who has been transformed into a Generation Game-era Bruce Forsyth by a vengeful plastic surgeon.

The Berry sensibility was also retained with melodramatic camera zooms, a musical finale and a 1970s feel (albeit now located mainly in Toast's hairdo). This doesn't entirely get the BBC off the hook - they still need to commission more Snuff Box - but with the help of co-writer, Father Ted's Arthur Mathews, Berry hasn't had to restrain his imagination. Squeezing the larger-than-life luvvie Toast into a Sunday night sitcom set-up has just become part of the joke instead.

Toast of London was picked up from Channel 4's comedy pilot season last year. It's a mildly surreal sitcom about a pretentious actor played by Matt Berry (doing that same "cinema advert voiceover" voice he did in The IT Crowd and the much-missed Garth Marenghi's Dark Place - can it be his actual voice?) Berry also co-wrote it with Arthur Mathews, who co-wrote Father Ted and the late 1990s sketch show, Big Train, which launched half of Britain's current comedy actors.

Toast shares that off-kilter sensibility within a more conventional format: its hero goes through the usual sitcom set-ups, but with a disturbed edge.

For instance, when he meets a potential love interest, she's played by Emma Fryer with a manic laugh and demented body language, as if miming a crane. And she's called Susan Random, one of many deliberately odd character names (Clem Fandango, Jemima Gina, Kikini Bamalam). There's also a sudden, brief musical number which flares up intriguingly and a really unsettling Bruce Forsyth lookalike.

But there are two big flaws: Toast himself isn't that interesting a character and there aren't enough actual laughs. This could develop into something weird and wonderful but for now it's just the former.

Toast Of London: the five rules of thesping

The Shakespearean actor Steven Toast - a close associate of The IT Crowd's Matt Berry - shares the wisdom built up over a lifetime of luvviedom

Matt Berry on Toast of London

Cult sitcom star Matt Berry talks about his ageing thespian, Steven Toast.