Rebecca Front

If you know Simon Amstell, it's probably from his fine work as the host of Never Mind the Buzzcocks. He was brilliant at it - fizzing with cruel jibes at the expense of guests. Then he decided to do something else. That something else turns out to be this, a sitcom in which Amstell's character has to cope with his Essex family's disappointment when he gives up his popular TV show. Yes, we're in self-referential territory here. "You can't act, can you?" splutters his indignant mother, played by Rebecca Front. "Anyway, you've got a skill already - taking the p*** out of pop stars." Front is on great form playing what could be a stock character, the oppressive Jewish mother, and there are flashes of something special in the petty domestic exchanges. It takes a while to get on the show's wavelength but, on the evidence here, it looks like being well worth it.

Simon Amstell's odd, self-referential sitcom begins with him telling his family he's thinking about leaving Never Mind the Buzzcocks, before settling into close, uneasy observational humour. Rebecca Front as his mum and Jamal Hadjkura as his nephew are excellent; Amstell, though, takes a while to settle into his stride. But once the set-up is established, it grows in confidence, and next week's episode suggests it's an oddity worth sticking with.

There are some great lines in this new comedy, even if the main character is wrapped up in such a thick cocoon of self-referential irony that it is impossible to tell whether he is meant to be endearing, or an obnoxious twit, or both.

The award-winning Simon Amstell, who co-wrote the script as well as playing the lead, is pretty much himself: an acerbic TV presenter in search of something more meaningful, such as love, or Buddhism, or a new haircut. This causes shrieks of outrage among the female relations who gather in his grandparents' ornament-cluttered suburban semi with nothing more exciting to do than watch him being rude to pop stars on television (as the real Amstell used to do on Never Mind the Buzzcocks). Simon can be both knowingly funny, and amusingly clueless: when his grandfather says he has cancer, Simon gabbles "What should I do? Should I hug you?" and "That was my concerned voice. Did you like it?"

This ambiguity makes him difficult to warm to as a comic creation, and he may need to become more coherent to make the six-part series really sing. In the meantime, there are typically well-pitched performances from The Thick of It's Rebecca Front, who plays Simon's dotty mother, Tanya, and James Smith, who takes on the role of her odious suitor Clive - complete with smarmy anecdotes and an inexcusably high waistband.

The problem with Grandma's House is the obvious Simon Amstell issue. The set up is that Simon Amstell is playing Simon Amstell in a kind of Jewish version of The Royle Family. But obviously it's a sitcom, so he's playing a version of himself, you know, like how Larry David plays a less good George Costanza on Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Now, obviously this is confusing. But that's not the main Simon Amstell issue. The issue is that The Character Simon Amstell is not really a very good Simon Amstell. Simon Amstell on Never Mind The Buzzcocks seemed brilliantly witty and yet somehow vulnerable and caring even when shooting out terrible offensive jibes. The Character Simon Amstell here just seems a bit annoying and smug. There's a rhythm to the comedy which is thrown off by this and the show takes some time - two episodes - to get over it. Fortunately, because he has a brilliant cast around him (Rebecca Front is superb - but that barely seems worth saying nowadays), you can easily forget about any irritation caused by The Character Simon Amstell for those two eps and may well come to really enjoy the show.

Rebecca Front: 'Men don't trust women to be funny'

Rebecca Front, Bafta-winning star of The Thick of It, discusses industry sexism and her new BBC sitcom, Grandma's House.

Political and polemical do not always a great comedian make, but Jeremy Hardy keeps his revolutionary fist in an amusingly silky glove for Radio 4. This series of comic lectures - in which he is joined for mock interviews by guests such as Alison Steadman, Rebecca Front and, as is the case here, Gordon Kennedy - started back in 1993. Subjects covered down the years have helped the nation grow to the fulsome state of cultural, intellectual and spiritual awareness that we are blessed with today. None of this would have happened if Jeremy Hardy had not lectured us upon How to Argue Your Position, How to Improve Your Mind and the seminal How to Have Sex. Why was this man not in the Queen's Birthday Honours? Oh, yes. He's a socialist.

Acting the pundit

When I played a minister, I was asked about real-life politics. But my cop drama has yet to get me on a case.

As our real-life Government entered what are quite possibly its death throes, so did the fictitious government in Armando Iannucci's uproarious political sitcom. Rebecca Front arrived to play a hand-wringing minister but the focal point was, as ever, Peter Capaldi's vicious spin doctor, Malcolm Tucker. Weirdly, Tucker's sacking in the penultimate episode proved one of the saddest moments on TV this year.

And so the third season of the sharpest sitcom on TV effs and jeffs its way inventively towards its denouement, with Nicola Murray MP (Rebecca Front) and her party facing annihilation at the ballot box. Yet just when they need him most, resident rottweiler of spin Malcolm Tucker (Peter Capaldi) has been placed on gardening leave, reduced to lobbing popcorn restlessly at the television when Andrew Neil appears. However, even in his absence, Malcolm's still giving harassed minister Murray the heebie-jeebies - "I keep imagining every time I open my filing cabinet that he's going to be crouched in there eating a lamb shank," she groans - and sure enough, her nightmares become reality when Malcolm's offered a ticket back to the front line by an unlikely new ally, priggish blue-sky thinker Julius Nicholson (Alex MacQueen). "He is Lazarus, isn't he? He just can't die," observes Murray, ruefully. Thrillingly, the episode hints that the Opposition has unearthed its own Malcolm Tucker, a counter-spinner so fearsome that his short and unprintable nickname is whispered in hushed tones throughout the corridors of power. It seems as if everyone's tooling up for a battle royale; sparks and spittle will fly.

The ailing government is spiralling into the abyss and Malcolm Tucker is both waving and drowning when he tries to charm a group of journalists. Though "charm" is an overstatement: "Journalists...one day you are writing for the papers, the next you are sleeping under them." It's typical Tucker bravado, but you can tell he's feeling insecure. There's a real sense of panic in the penultimate episode of Armando Iannucci's skin-piercing satire. Over at the Department of Social Affairs and Citizenship, Secretary of State Nicola Murray (Rebecca Front) is thrilled to have won the support of tennis ace Andy Murray for a healthy-eating campaign. But the arrival of Steve Fleming (a terrifying David Haig), Malcolm's bete noire and fellow spinner, pitches everyone into chaos. There's something almost frightening about The Thick of It when it's this intense. And when Fleming and Tucker have a titanic, foul-mouthed battle, be afraid.