Rafe Spall

Marriage is hell, divorce is heaven and breakdown is a purgatory in between. I Give It A Year, a London-set comedy, is as patchy as a troubled marriage, glum one moment and hysterical the next. Judged by the press show, it sorts those recognising and responding to its take on matrimony from those not. Silence in row A, happy uproar in row B, nervous giggles in row C ...

I loved Stephen Merchant's tactless, blue-joking wedding speaker who sends the party's cringe thermometer through the roof. Rafe Spall (boorishly extrovert while simultaneously little-boy-lost) and Rose Byrne (vulnerably sophisticated) are a match made in the world's worst match factory, crafted to strike a brief, flaring light, then sputter and fizzle. Anna Faris, sweet and pretty-plain, and Simon Baker, a smoothie made from forbidden fruits, are the interloper tempters.

There is a very funny malfunctioning threesome scene, illustrating the asymmetrical warfare of the DIY mini-orgy. (One person always gets dumped on the bedroom floor.) And writer-director Dan Mazer (Borat, Brüno) has an unsparing skill at pushing comic situations to the pain barrier and beyond. These include a relationship counsellor (Olivia Colman) whose own relationship, judged by her off-office screams down a phone line, needs all the counselling it can get.

Review: I Give it a Year

Abysmal, humourless newlyweds comedy starring Rose Byrne, Rafe Spall and Anna Faris.

Rafe Spall: from fat to fit

Once the go-to man for feckless losers, Rafe Spall reveals how losing five stone transformed him into a romantic lead in I Give It A Year and turned his career around.

Pete Versus Life unlikely to return, say reports

Rafe Spall sitcom Pete Versus Life is unlikely to return to Channel 4, according to reports in Broadcast.

The second season of Pete's ongoing grudge match with life ends tonight as he has a close encounter with a girl who passionately believes in aliens and UFOs.

Tilly (Georgia Maguire) is bonkers, obviously, but could actually be Pete's perfect girl - one who's almost gullible enough to believe some of his lies.

But Pete has other plans as he finds out his old flame Chloe has started seeing his arch-nemesis Jake.

Commentators Colin and Terry have been on a course about how women are people too. Not so you'd notice though.

And while no animals were harmed in the making of this episode for a change, a 12-year-old footballer ends up in traction.

So has the show got legs for a third series? Thanks to the likeable Rafe Spall, and Colin and Terry's crass brilliance, we hope so.

With the possible exception of Tom Hollander and his Rev cohorts, there isn't a better comic performer on TV right now than Rafe Spall. He makes magic with fairly ordinary scripts, adding his own tics, double- takes and whimpers (I LOVE Pete's whimpers) and his very own brand of appealing hopelessness.

So it's a pity this is the last in the current series, though it goes out on a great final two minutes as Pete implodes when witnessing a marriage proposal. This is after he goes out with a half-witted UFO believer called Tilly. And after he goads then picks a fight with a street performer who pretends to be a robot. I'm going to miss you, Pete. You prize berk.

We've noted Rafe Spall's appalling track record with family pets before now, so it should come as no surprise when Pete opens the batting tonight by running over a moggy called Monty.

But is he going to let a little detail like that stop him from copping off with Monty's pretty female owner, Mel? Of course not.

Pete's massive lie this week involves pretending to be a military hero. That's a hard trick to pull off, but the most convincing acting on screen this week is actually from a dog called Gary.

Gary is the only one who knows what really happened to Monty and if looks could kill, Pete would be dog-food.

As our favourite commentators Colin and Terry explain, it's rare for a dog and cat to be friends, "but they found enough common ground in their dislike of birds to make the relationship work."

Craven Pete, professional disaster and romantic failure, runs over a woman's cat, which gives him the perfect opportunity to try to get off with the grieving pet-owner.

This, like every single one of Pete's potential assignations, could bomb horribly when it comes to laughs, but Rafe Spall is so endearing as pin-brained Pete (he's a halfwit, but he's not malicious) that it just works.

It's a delight, too, to know that everything will always go badly wrong, despite Pete's best efforts and Olympian lies.

Work is so thin on the ground for journalist Pete (Rafe Spall) in the third episode of this run of the clever sports sitcom that he's working in a chicken packing factory. But then a newspaper accepts his article criticising Lottie Beaumont, Britain's seventh best tennis player - the problem is she's his girlfriend.

It's hard not to like this, and believe me I've tried. But Rafe Spall is great at the whimpering, socially inept halfwit whose every action is fodder for a couple of sports commentators.

Tonight, Pete's dad (the great Philip Jackson) fetches up at Pete's house, saying he's left Pete's mum. Nothing of what follows is subtle, but it has just enough charm to keep you watching. There are some good asides about rip-off local shops and their paranoid owners and an unkind dig at Mick Hucknall.