Paul Whitelaw

In a way, this defiantly old-fashioned adult panto is TV's brightest emblem of the true spirit of Christmas, seeing as the only reasoned response to watching it is a solemnly uttered "Jesus Christ."

The argument in favour is that it appeals to an audience who have been ignored for too long, namely those overlooked millions who shriek with mirth at the very idea of a man in drag saying rude words and brandishing a vibrator. I can't argue with its popularity, but I can argue that it's a crass, depressing, lazy shriek of badly written garbage.

The only thing that could do more damage to our beloved comedy tradition of cross-dressing is if George Osborne personally demolished a trail of orphanages while dressed as Carmen Miranda.

Anyway, the BBC, in an extraordinary act of cruelty, have foisted not one but two Mrs Brown Christmas specials on us this year (Christmas Eve, 10.15pm, and Boxing Day, 9.30pm, BBC1). And wouldn't you know it, they're atrocious.

I'll give the limelight-hogging O'Carroll one grudging point for at least trying to make them as Christmassy as possible. Mrs B writes a nativity play in which she stars as the Virgin Mary. There's a bit of slapstick business with a Christmas tree, which is practically de rigueur. It's not at all funny, of course, but it's there.

Otherwise it's dismal business as usual: every useless gag is painfully signposted from miles away, before the whole thing degenerates into a horribly cynical puddle of forced, fake, unearned pathos. Tonight's Christmas Eve episode actually ends with Mrs B eulogising her dead dad to the strains of a music box. And this following 25 minutes of crude slapstick and "fecks" in which she's portrayed as a thoroughly unsympathetic ratbag. They'd be better off calling it "Mrs Brown's Schizoid Circus of Doom".

Fundamentally, I'd like to see Brendan O'Carroll introduce the Christmas institution of announcing your retirement from television.

Sadly, our sole visit to the Brockman household this year suggests that the inevitable has finally happened: the young actors who play Ben and Karen are now too mature and self-aware for the comedy to work. Ben is alarmingly deep-voiced and large, and Karen - once the linch-pin of the show - has hardly any screen time at all. It's as if writers Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin have realised she no longer works as a character. If you remove the eccentric charm of Ben and Karen from the equation, then Outnumbered doesn't have any reason to exist. I suspect the fifth series next year will be the last.

The family sitcom is, of course, perfectly suited to a Yuletide makeover. Shows such as C4's Friday Night Dinner, which is set almost entirely within the confines of a single family home, practically demand that at least one episode be set at Christmas.

The inaugural special from Friday Night Dinner is pretty successful, in that it's consistently amusing - it too involves a bit of comic business with a Christmas tree - and revolves around an awkward extended family gathering where everything goes pudding-shaped. This is practically a staple of Christmas-themed sitcom episodes, used in everything from The Royle Family to Peep Show and Outnumbered.

BCAs: 'A complacent celebration of outright mediocrity'

The British Comedy Awards return next week, and Paul Whitelaw is not amused.

TV preview: Peep Show

So here it is, back again, in its new Sunday evening, post-Homeland slot, presumably in the further hope of picking up new viewers in need of a laugh after an hour of teeth-clenched suspense.

Why is this fine comedy broadcast only in Scotland?

It's the funniest British sketch comedy in years. So why doesn't the BBC give it a slot in its UK-wide schedules?

TV preview: Getting On

Now in its third series, this unvarnished gem has always presented a humane and despairing portrait of the beleaguered NHS. But now, more than ever, it feels like a helpless eulogy for an institution trudging towards its final days.

Hebburn is a fairly warm-hearted new sitcom written by stand-up comic Jason Cook. Set in the unremarkable town of Hebburn, South Tyneside, where Cook grew up, it revolves around a close-knit working-class family headed by Vic Reeves (billed under real name Jim Moir) and Gina McKee. He's affable and blokey, she's overbearingly well-meaning in the way sitcom mums almost always are.

Rounding out the brood are comedian Chris Ramsey - who looks like Stan Laurel moonlighting as a member of One Direction - as the prodigal son awkwardly introducing his "girlfriend" (Fresh Meat's Kimberley Nixon) to the family. But unbeknownst to them, the pair secretly wed in Vegas. Oh no! Apparently.

There's also a daffy gran prone to inappropriate outbursts, and a tart-with-a-heart sister. So no, it won't win any awards for originality (if indeed such awards existed). And that's Hebburn's problem: although it's packed with gags, they're mostly rather obvious and unremarkable. Cook - who also appears in a supporting role - can't resist all the usual cheap tracksuits and fake-tan jibes, and even throws a cheesy pub singer in for good measure. Tinged with pathos and black comedy, it's amiable enough, and nicely performed - especially by McKee, reminding us that she's capable of delivering much more than the frosty types she's usually cast as. But it isn't remotely distinctive or original.

We really are through the looking glass here, as Toast Of London is yet another promising sitcom pilot. Co-written with Father Ted co-creator Arthur Mathews, it's a winningly silly vehicle for Matt Berry from The IT Crowd, and follows a farcical day in the life of a successful West End stage actor.

Yes, it finds the one-note Berry delivering the only performance he can - a bombastic, bawdy, swaggering ham with a voice like vintage brandy - but I can't deny that, with a busily gag-strewn script such as this, he exploits his limited strengths to the full. Not to be outdone, the whole cast - including the great Geoffrey McGivern, last seen in Dead Boss - deliver similarly broad performances, and the whole thing is so relentlessly daft it's hard to resist its rambling charms. More please, C4!

Considerably less impressive [than Toast Of London] is C4 Comedy Presents: Them From That Thing an almost entirely mirthless sketch show that wastes 
a core cast of able comic performers such as Sally Phillips and Fonejacker's Kayvan Novak on weak, strained material (some of which was apparently written by the usually reliable Charlie Brooker).

Its gimmick, such as it is, is casting straight actors such as Bill Paterson and Sean Pertwee in comic roles, but that just comes across as a desperate attempt to give it some identity. This is committee-formed comedy, lacking in 
singular vision.