Mel Giedroyc

It's a cameo-crammed episode of Sue Perkins's vet-based comedy tonight. She's joined by long-time collaborator Mel Giedroyc, on top form as a brusque Russian. Then Steve Pemberton pops up as a veterinary inspector with a penchant for horses. Despite feeling curiously detached from any sort of reality, Perkins's script is sprightly and her presence is somehow reassuring - awkward but always amiable.

This sketch show from Anna Crilly (Lead Balloon) and Katy Wix (Not Going Out) skewers TV shows and genres with affectionate/savage accuracy. So Great British Bake Off becomes Rice Britannia, with Crilly doing an accurate Mel Giedroyc, and a clever Apprentice skit is believable down to the ugly businesswear and nonsensical parts of speech. Mucky in places, silly in others and funny more often than not, Anna & Katy are great performers.

Comedian, Maestro winner, Celebrity Big Brother housemate, Great British Bake Off presenter and possible future Doctor Who, Sue Perkins has somehow managed to neglect writing and starring in her very own sitcom until now.

Here she plays Sara, a vet who's too afraid to tell her parents she's gay. But as her 40th birthday approaches, Sara's loyal band of friends, which includes Nicola Walker from Spooks, have a plan to give her the courage to tell her folks.

Perhaps they could show them the spread from Tatler magazine that hailed Sue as one of Britain's coolest lesbians.

Some exciting guests are lined up for the series including Dawn French and Sue's comedy partner Mel Giedroyc. Tonight the fabulous Mark Heap drops in.

Sue Perkins has become ubiquitous at the BBC in the last few years, whether eating peculiar period food or learning to conduct orchestras or telling us about Mrs Dickens/Maria Von Trapp or, as co-host of The Great British Bake-Off, making bad puns about buns. Someone, somewhere, has decided we can't get enough of her. You may have your own feelings about this. Well, here she is again, allegedly going back to her comedy roots with her own sitcom, where she plays Sara, a neurotic vet who's about to turn 40 but hasn't yet managed to tell her parents that she's gay.

Despite being kind of annoying, she has supportive friends (including ever-reliable performers Nicola Walker and Joanna Scanlan) and is able to attract hot ladies like Shelley Conn, who is charmed by Sara's rotten patter and way with extracting barbed wire from dogs' paws.

Around 50 per cent of the show is laboured animal slapstick - there is a dead cat which is lugged around to decreasing effect - and the other half is meant to be touching, as Sara wrestles with her inadequacies and her friends urge her to finally come out to her folks. It's an awkward mix. The comedy just isn't that funny and the sentiment isn't that interesting. At times I felt a bit of second-hand embarrassment and - worst of all - the show reminded me of two grim indulgent sitcoms of years past: Baddiel's Syndrome, in which David Baddiel and his mates failed miserably at doing a Seinfeld, and Rhona, in which Rhona Cameron and her mates (including Perkins' double act and Bake-Off partner Mel Giedroyc) failed at doing an Ellen. What they all have in common is that their stars aren't actually actors but stand-ups, and that the other two only lasted one series. There's a lesson there.

Mel Giedroyc takes a break from cake to reveal her personal nightmares - including pretentious types who pronounce spaghetti with the full Italian accent - in the hope that Frank Skinner will consign them to the oblivion of Room 101. But there's tough competition from her fellow guests: actor Hugh Dennis is lobbying for Las Vegas to be wiped from the face of the earth, while Cilla Black has a lorra lorra laffs trying to trash modern technology. And knickers.

There often comes an awkward moment when the guests outline their pet hates and you wonder if the audience will applaud at the end of the pitch. Sometimes they don't, and it leaves the celeb stranded, because the line between righteous yes-we-all-hate-that anger and ranting about minutiae is a hazy one.

Luckily, host Frank Skinner usually rides to the rescue with a well-observed quip. Tonight, he tops Mel Giedroyc's gripe about people who overpronounce Italian words in restaurants ("spag-HAY-tee") by observing that if you tried the same in a Chinese restaurant, it would be dreadful. Meanwhile, Hugh Dennis hates leaving cards, and Cilla Black believes there's a conspiracy surrounding knickers.

All the obvious targets were shunted off into the vault of shame a long time ago, so the attraction of Room 101 these days is the window that it gives into the bizarre minds of celebrities.

Without a script, and without anything to plug, what are they really thinking? This week it's showbiz legend Cilla Black who provides some of the most unexpected moments, as ­comedian Frank Skinner invites his guests to nominate their pet hates concerning people and modern life, plus their wild card entry.

"When I used to watch you on TV I used to wonder what we'd talk about if we ever met," Frank admits. "I never expected this." His other guests, Outnumbered star Hugh Dennis and Great British Bake Off presenter Mel Giedroyc, can only stare in wonder as Cilla explains her gripe with one particular gadget.

But Frank has also got an old clip of Cilla that's odder than the rest of the show put together.

Frank Skinner seems uncharacteristically star-struck at having Cilla Black on the show, perhaps because so many of his guests have been distinctly underwhelming (even boring) so far this series. Cilla's professional sparkle certainly jollies along some fairly morose contributions from comedian Hugh Dennis and TV presenter Mel Giedroyc as they discuss their competitive dislikes of, among other things, pompous celebrities, office leaving cards, Las Vegas and knickers.

Mel Giedroyc - letter to my younger self

Mel Giedroyc, 44, on meeting comedy partner Sue, The Great British Bake Off, and the 'incredible moment' that changed her life.

Interview: Mel Giedroyc, comedian and broadcaster

'When I didn't get into drama school, I spent three days in bed with a bottle of whisky'