Paul Whitehouse

I'm sure BBC2 has its reasons for burying Harry And Paul at 10pm on a Sunday night. But if Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse can keep up the opening episode's 70 per cent strike rate, I'm definitely in.

Their Question Time skit was spot on, especially the bit about the panel often including a 'comedian who wants to be taken seriously'. I'm presuming it was a reference to the likes of Steve Coogan and Jimmy Carr, but let's face it: the description could also apply to any number of MPs these days.

Enfield and Whitehouse return with more silly voices and flashes of comic inspiration (amid, it has to be said, the odd clunker). Probably the best sketch has a lovely cameo from Victoria Wood, who combines with Enfield to play the Minor Royals, a pair of hopeless toffs visiting a corner shop and simply adoring its ethnic ambience ("Mmm, what an exotic aroma... What a wonderful place Willesden is!"). And there's an enjoyable Killing-inspired spoof of the BBC's love affair with all things Danish.

While there's no doubting the ability of Paul Whitehouse and Harry Enfield to do silly voices and funny impressions, their knack for writing fresh, original ideas is far less reliable these days. Following a tired Dragon's Den sketch with an overlong Question Time skit reeks of laziness and lack of adventure, as does the return of the likes of Parking Pataweyo (cor, bloody parking attendants, eh?). While there are a host of 'different' characters, many are just minor variations on the 'overly posh' theme, with each caricatured incarnation identifiable solely by a costume change and a negligible shift in accent. The procession of mediocrity can't even be saved by Kevin Eldon, which doesn't bode well. If anything's going to raise a titter here, it's more likely to stem from a word said in a slightly funny way than from a great gag or smart idea.

Harry & Paul (BBC2, Sunday) seem to have moved to my north-west London manor. Oi, that's the bus stop up the road. "What a wonderful place Willesden is," says Victoria Wood who joins in to play, alongside Harry, a pair of minor royals, visiting a corner shop in a less salubrious part of town than they're used to. It's one of the hits.

What, hit and miss? A sketch show? Really? Of course it is. You could even argue that this kind of traditional sketch show shouldn't have much of a future. But television would be poorer without Harry & Paul, because it can be so good.

It's not about the gags - if you looked at the script, you would probably just think: eh? It's all about the characters, and the interaction of the characters. Enfield and Whitehouse don't just dress up and put on silly voices, they possess their characters. The hits are big hits. "Probable quare" still makes me laugh. And the one at the end where it all goes Nordic noir is a joy.

They're now more classic than cutting edge, but it's good to have Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse back for a fourth series of their sketch show. Tonight they revisit old ground (their spoof of Dragons' Den) and break out some new characters. Victoria Wood joins in for a dig at the minor royals, and there is a send-up of Question Time.

Tell me if you find this funny: murder squad detectives make a grisly find and can't stop vomiting: on the corpse, everywhere. The crime scene is a mess and still one of them says: "We'll need blood and hair samples." Then his buddy says: "Breakfast?" I didn't find it funny, not during the first of the new sketch show Cardinal Burns, but now I'm less inclined to call for the return of Horne & Corden which, let's face it, would have been disastrous. There was one genius skit: radical street-artist Banksy as a suburban drongo who buys his spray-paint from Homebase and gets stuck on tiny ladders. But the funniest sketch show on the box isn't a show at all: it's those insurance ads featuring the many faces of Paul Whitehouse.

I love a spoof documentary, me. Not, you understand, of the nonsensical Life's Too Short variety, but rather those spot-on parodies of pop culture epochs such as Eric Idle's magnificent Beatles spoof, The Rutles: All You Need Is Cash, and Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse's criminally underrated Smashie and Nicey: End of an Era.

As well as being packed with exquisite gags, those mock-docs worked so beautifully because of their loving attention to detail, proving that the very best parodies are made by those who know their subject inside out. And while Peter Capaldi's the Cricklewood Greats doesn't quite reach such giddy heights, it certainly delivers in terms of affectionate irreverence and the care with which it's made.

Charting the wavering fortunes of a fictional British film studio - think Ealing by way of Hammer, and all stops in between - it functions not only as an impressively realised parody of the average BBC 4 entertainment documentary, but also of those insight-free films in which a celebrity hijacks an interesting subject in pursuit of their own meaningless "personal journey."

Written in conjunction with his The Thick Of It cohort Tony Roche - who also penned BBC 4's splendid Python biopic, Holy Flying Circus - Capaldi directs and also stars as himself, paying overly-reverential tribute to the ghosts of the Cricklewood dream factory, including thinly disguised versions of Gracie Fields, Peter Cushing and Kenneth Williams (the acutely observed pastiches of his withering diary entries are a particular highlight).

No "tears behind the laughter" cliché is left unturned in this modest treat for connoisseurs of archive film and television, which, although merely amusing rather than hilarious, is still witty and charming and thoroughly commendable.

A new series, sir? Did she want it, sir? - Interview

Paul Whitehouse and Charlie Higson talk about getting older and why they decided to make a new series of The Fast Show - but not for the BBC.

Fast Show stars blame panel shows for killing TV comedy

The reunited cast of The Fast Show - including Paul Whitehouse, Charlie Higson, Caroline Aherne and John Thomson - have claimed that British comedy is being stifled by the number of panel shows on television.