Ricky Gervais

The confidently sustained story, the build-up of emotional resonance and the parochial aspirationalism that characterise Cemetery Junction are all of a piece with the sitcom work of Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant.

The film focuses on three pals entering adulthood in 1973 Reading: Bruce (Tom Hughes) is all swaggering bravado; Snork (Tom Doolan) is a clown; and apprentice insurance salesman Freddie (Christian Cooke) is knuckling down to a life of bourgeois comfort he hasn't quite sold himself on yet. He finds a kindred spirit in childhood crush Julie (Felicity Jones), whose slimy dad (Ralph Fiennes) and fiancé (Matthew Goode) - Freddie's boss and mentor at the insurance firm - have decidedly lower opinions of her potential. There are laughs, but this isn't quite a comedy.

The film often leans heavily enough on its models to feel formulaic, and its romances map too closely on to those of The Office. Overall, though, it's refreshing to see a mainstream British film with the ambition to strut its stuff on studio terms. Aspirational indeed.

Children's books are a familiar second-career path for people in public life, from Prince Charles to Ricky Gervais. Happily, even for a busy person, David Walliams's efforts seem a cut above the celebrity norm. The tale of a homeless man befriended by a middle-class schoolgirl, this adaptation features a suitably strong cast. Benidorm regulars Johnny Vegas and Sheridan Smith play the parents of 12-year-old Chloe, who invites a tramp (Hugh Bonneville) to hang out in her family's garden shed. Gentle family comedy, featuring Walliams himself as the prime minister.

Ricky Gervais in talks to lead The Muppets sequel?

The lead human character in The Muppets 2 might just be played by Ricky Gervais...

Part of the 4Funnies season, this latest pilot appears to have a few things that could well make it into a series. For starters it's rather heart-warming, it's amusing, but the main reason Channel 4 will probably turn it a full series is because Ricky Gervais is executive producer (that's pretty much how PhoneShop got commissioned).

Created by stand-up David Earl, the title character, Brian Gittins, is a taxi driver working in a small, slightly oddball town. It's not every place that regularly has someone wearing only their underpants walking around hold a large bunch of balloons. The story follows his working life, in his taxi which keeps having constant faults, whether it is the horn activating whenever he turns the steering wheel, or the alarm going off when he walks about ten feet away from the vehicle.

The main plot concerns Brian's attempts, with help from his student daughter Lucy (Camille Ucan), to try and ask out his controller Cheryl (Ashley McGuire) out on a date. However, the funniest moments are when Brian is making his journeys with his passengers. For example there's the sequence when Brian has to deliver a woman in labour to a hospital, but because of the taxi's faults it keeps turning on the radio, leading to a chorus of "Rabbit" by Chas and Dave.

This pilot seems to have a little bit of everything. A bit of slapstick, a bit of romance, a bit of realism thrown in. Gittins has all the makings of a decent sitcom.

Character comedian David Earl has popped up in Extras, Derek and Cemetery Junction, so it's no surprise that Ricky Gervais acts as executive producer on his 4Funnies pilot. Earl plays Brian Gittins - an oddball, gravel-voiced minicab driver - who means well but is a little creepy. This Gittins is a toned-down version of a character who's been a regular fixture on the live circuit (albeit as a café owner rather than cabbie) for Earl. We follow Gittins's car journeys: awkward flirting with colleague Cheryl over the taxi's radio, dating advice from his daughter and conversations with eccentric passengers. Earl's performance is subtle and generous to his supporting cast. The set-ups can be a little clumsy - 'Right Dad, I'm on Google,' his daughter says to establish one scene, before slowly reading out exactly what she's typing - and the half-hour's more likely to induce giggles rather than belly laughs. But it has its moments, with Seb Cardinal's cameo as an Irish passenger obsessed with the volume of dog mess abroad being a highlight: 'My whole memory of Holland was a country jam-packed with dogshit.'

Radio Times review

Social networks always angrily announce that each new TV comedy is a hateful waste of airtime whose creators' cameras should be confiscated. Eventually, they were right. The justly derided Kookyville (Sunday C4) used the constructed reality format of The Only Way Is Essex - real people having real conversations, but clearly prompted, marshalled and heavily edited by the producers - and found a way to make it twenty times more grubby.

TOWIE, Made in Chelsea, Geordie Shore and the rest might have plenty of comic moments, but the audience normally like and take an interest in the participants, even if the programme-makers view them as tacky/posh/lairy scum.

Kookyville lost any pretence of following people's lives and presented the most ignorant and uncouth volunteers it could find around the country, carefully showing them in snippets at their worst, for smug laughs. It was presented as a comedy but relied on its stars not thinking they were in one, so the exploitation was obvious and painful.

This goading was depressingly cynical, but what made Kookyville a stinker for the ages was the frequency of ickily insensitive comments about minorities. Isn't it funny when people think it's OK to, for instance, tell an anecdote about a Thalidomide victim falling and not being able to right himself? As we already told Ricky Gervais: actually, no it isn't, and your decision to focus on this stuff is unfortunate at best. From the lazily awful title down, Kookyville felt like it had been designed to make the world just a little bit worse. Culturally, we were another inch towards armageddon.

DVD review: Life's Too Short

Life's Too Short, created by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, is clever series with a whole host of guest appearances to savour, including one Johnny Depp.

It's fair to say Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse have overmined the black-and-white movie seam in the latest series of Harry & Paul. But I'll happily forgive them that particular obsession. Because their gutting of Ricky Gervais last Sunday was as merciless as their On The Buses meets Sherlock sketch was inspired. If you're quick you might still catch them on iPlayer.

Tonight there's the painful sight of Harry and Paul not just missing a comedy open goal but skying the ball into row Z. They open with a sketch making fun at the expense of Ricky Gervais, mocking his sheepish grins, his self-conscious looks to camera and so on. But the impressions are nowhere near good enough, so instead of our biggest comedy star getting taken down a peg or two by a pair of elder statesmen, it all rings a bit hollow. Shame.

Elsewhere, I Saw You Coming has opened an artisan bakery and the posh surgeons, Charles and Sheridan, discuss video games.