Nick Blood

Poor old Steve. As he battles on through his best man's speech, you can almost touch the tumbleweed. He's been hung out to dry by bridegroom Paul's indiscretions and Becky's ex Lee (Nick Blood, so creepily smooth if makes your flesh crawl) undermining him at every turn. He wants the ground to open up and swallow him - and he's not the only one. Russell Tovey stars in the terrific comedy that's an unholy marriage of Carry On and Beckett.

Laughs were provided by Sky One's Trollied, which returns for its third series. The joy of Trollied is that it has so many characters that the majority of the scenes only last a couple of minutes.

The main plot of this series seems to be the introduction of Richard France (Chris Geere), a strategist who is aiming to modernise Valco using the Warrington branch as his tester store. Obviously Richard's bold ideas, including his clothing choices, will inevitably clash with the more traditional views of manager Gavin (Jason Watkins) and his assistant manager Julie (Jane Horrocks).

Elsewhere, we are treated more to the tedious love story between butcher Kieran (Nick Blood) and checkout girl Katie (Chanel Creswell). It seems that the now divorced Kieran is in a depressive state while Katie has finally realised that he's the perfect man for her. Luckily this romantic story isn't dwelt upon too long and we get plenty from our favourite comic characters including head butcher Andy (Mark Addy) and senior citizen deli assistant Margaret (Rita May).

It is these established characters that get the best gags including the now romantically linked Colin (Carl Rice) and Lisa (Beverly Rudd) whose sexual exploits provide some of the funniest moments in the episode.

I'm still not quite sure what to make of weird fishmonger Ray (Adeel Akhtar) and his new apprentice Dave (Danny Kirrane) as I didn't find their characters to be fully-formed.

Ultimately not much has changed in the world of Trollied and I think I like it that way. The jokes are still as funny as ever while the performances from Watkins and Horrocks are great especially when we saw how proud Gavin and Julie were of their summertime display.

Though I don't think this will quite reach the heights of Season 2, due to the fact that Stephanie Beacham has now left the show, Trollied continues to be a funny sketch-like sitcom with plenty of well-rounded characters.

Trollied, the little comedy that taught us just how enthralling life in a budget supermarket can be, returns for its second series this week with a new boss - Dynasty ice queen Stephanie Beacham.

Episode one sees the Valco gang trying to adjust to life under their new boss - something that Julie (Jane Horrocks) in particular struggles with as she pines over her lost-love Gavin (Jason Watkins). The ladies' conflict comes to a head in the second instalment at 9.30pm when they differ over the store's new below-basic range. Trollied is far from a two-woman show though - Mark Addy, Nick Blood, Beverly Rudd and the rest of the crew are back as well, waiting for you to check them out.

This show may not major on belly laughs, or even seek them, but it's created a core of winning characters in the staff of Valco supermarket. This week Leyton, the gauche shelf stacker, takes it upon himself to alphabeticise the entire magazine section. Butcher Andy reveals an unexpected passion for Ian Botham, and Margaret has had her hair done for some silver surfing - her first Skype call to family in Canada.

But the focus is on lovelorn best mates Kieran and Kate (lovely understated performances from Nick Blood and Chanel Cresswell) when a shopfitter with a rat's tail hair extension comes between them.

There are some things you know really shouldn't make you laugh but somehow completely crack you up. So it was with an exchange on Trollied in which interim supermarket boss Julie (Jane Horrocks) informed the deli counter that she was, ahem, interimming. I'll run that past you one more time: she said she was 'interimming'. Suffice to say the butcher boys - Mark Addy and Nick Blood, having a ball - chewed that one up and spat it out for all it was worth.

Away from the unreconstituted filth, not all of Trollied hit the same spot. Horrocks was aiming for pathos as the socially inept Jane but it was a little too easy to see why everyone wanted to see the back of her. Jason Watkins, beloved of Psychoville and Being Human fans, seemed oddly muted as her boss.

It's the minor characters that make Trollied worth tailgating, with a psychotic shoplifter, a man with a habit of shooting a can of aerosol cream into his mouth by way of a perk, the pick of the bunch. More of him, and more airtime for the fledgling romance twixt butcher boy Kieran and his till-trapped admirer, and Trollied could yet beat the bargain bin.

It's The Office meets ASDA and it stars Jane Horrocks - as acting deputy manager Julie at Valco, a northern supermarket.

The art department has done a cracking job too - it looks absolutely bang-on, even though thanks to the magic of television, it was all filmed in a Bristol studio - in other words nowhere near "the north".

Plus it's full of left-over folk from Corrie - like Rita May who plays the very lovely and slightly dotty Margaret, who's got her very first job thanks to Valco's policy of employing older members of staff.

Mark Addy's in it too, behind the butcher counter and there's a nice Tim 'n' Dawn style romance between check-out girl Katie (Chanel Cresswell) and butcher's assistant Kieran (Nick Blood).

The second episode tonight is better than the first one, as the real assistant manager (another ex-Corrie star Rachel Leskovac) comes back to work to show everyone her new baby daughter.

She's popular, relaxed and genuinely well liked - all the things that bossy, ambitious Julie isn't, but would kill to be.

Actually, Jane Horrocks is the least good thing about this series - she's just not awful or deluded enough to be another David Brent, plus she's doing it all in a northern version of the posh voice she used in the Tesco ads.

For my money, the best characters are Sue and Linda (Lorraine Cheshire and Faye McKeever) - a buy-one-get-one-free double act who have some splendidly dirty jokes.

The Office may now be a decade old, but its influence can certainly be felt on this workplace comedy that also features a hapless authority figure, apathetic employees and even some Tim-and-Dawn-style unrequited romance. The setting is Valco, a budget supermarket in the North West, where Jane Horrocks plays Jill, the interim deputy manager, who's the kind to open a conversation with "no offence" and then immediately go on to wound the feelings of her subordinates. You know the type - bristling with ambition, but unable to keep from cramming her foot into her mouth at every opportunity. As for the humour, well, it feels a little broad at this point, particularly the scenes involving Jill's attempts to ingratiate herself with her boss Gavin (Jason Watkins), which predictably end with her buried in social shame. But there's definite potential in the slippage between the store's happy-to-help façade and the general disillusionment of its staff, with Nick Blood and The Full Monty's Mark Addy proving to be particularly effective in this opening double bill as butchering duo Kieran and Andy.

Sky1's really started amping up its original content recently and the latest result is brand new comedy Trollied. Is this going to be the supermarkets' answer to The Office? It's hard to tell straight away, but the cast is certainly strong - the fabulously expressive Jane Horrocks takes her place alongside Mark Addy who, fresh from being a king on Game of Thrones, becomes a butcher who really knows his bacon. Jason Watkins, Chanel Cresswell and Nick Blood are among the other stars joining the lineup at budget store Valco, so settle in for a double bill (or, um, buy one, get one free) and we'll see if it gets us rolling in the aisles (it's got to do better than that pun, for sure).