Robert Webb

Howard's attending to himself with the hair-dryer when he spots Vod disposing of a suspicious package in the wheelie bin. Kingsley's still smarting over Josie's sexual peccadillo but can't admit he likes her, while Oregon's trying to hide the fact she's got a car because it'll make her look posh. And Robert Webb is superbly excruciating as Dan the Geology Man, a lecturer desperate to be his students' friend. Nicely established characters and one funny line after another. Brilliant.

It's the best house-sharing sitcom since Spaced and last week's opening episode wasn't a fluke. The new series from Peep Show's Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong delivers laugh after excruciating laugh in its second episode tonight as it skewers the student lifestyle and Russell Brand's head into the bargain.

Tonight Robert Webb turns up as an over-eager tutor, ("On Twitter I'm Dan, Dan the Geology Man!") as Kingsley and co attempt to throw a party.

While Vod's sole aim is to cop off with the lead singer in a band, Oregon (who has adopted Vod as her new role model) is desperately trying to hide the fact that she has a car lest her housemates discover that she is (gasp) secretly middle-class and normal.

Once again though it's Jack Whitehall as the obnoxious JP who's trying hardest to impress. The scene involving a rowing machine and a spliff is just superb.

Fresh Meat's premise: six students with nothing in common forced to share a house in Manchester. But while the early publicity focused on the fact that the show stars Joe (Simon in The Inbetweeners) Thomas, anyone who saw Chickens will know that his presence is no guarantee of quality, so focus has shifted to Jack Whitehall's acting debut as the hip-hop-loving public schoolboy tosser JP.

Rightly so, because while Simon (sorry, Kingsley) has the will-they-won't-they love interest - and gets to do plenty of that scrunchy-eye, shaky-head, "I wish I'd never said that" thing that Thomas's characters are destined to do for the rest of his acting days - JP gets all the best lines.

"High motherfucking threadcount," he declares of his conquest's bedsheet. And when he's not showing respec' to his Tupac poster or dusting off his beloved bongos, JP is mainly getting drunk to enable him to bed girls so he can phone up his friends and tell them afterwards.

He's funny because he's a recognisable type, but Fresh Meat is rather too full of those and, at almost an hour, should really do more in terms of both comedy and drama. Perhaps Robert Webb's geology lecturer will provide these as the series develops. Though it's unlikely he will prove as enduring or endearing a character as the real-life Mr Drew.

If you're still laughing at the memory of Rob Brydon and Nick Hewer sharing an orange cuddle jumper last week, tune in tonight for some more fibbing fun.

David Mitchell's mate Robert Webb joins the panel tonight and would have us believe he once had so many imaginary friends they formed a gang.

Also on David's team is Sir Terry Wogan, with totally absurd stories that might or might not be true. Either way, he enjoys himself telling them.

It's almost impossible NOT to grin like an idiot all the way through as everyone is having such a good time. But it's in the cross-examination where this show really takes off.

It seems that inside every panellist is a barrister dying to get out and if the comedy thing ever dries up, somewhere out there is a horsehair wig with Lee Mack's name on it.

Katy Wix, Kevin Bridges and host Rob Brydon join in tonight's gleeful grilling.

There are quite a few things to be said about this panel show pilot made for digital channel Dave. First of all, it's better than Compete for the Meat.

Hosted by Alexander Armstrong, the main hook of this show is that the panellists - in this case Robert Webb, Katy Brand and Griff Rhys Jones - have to come up with the questions and they score points if their opponents fail to get them right. It has already been described as QI without the researchers.

There were some interesting things that popped up during the course of the show, such as the fact that in Victorian times green dye contained arsenic, so people were being slowly killed by their wallpaper. Not all the questions were based on far-flung info through, as one round consisted of trying to come up with funny questions to ask famous people. There was one example by Webb towards Louis Spence which I won't repeat here, but I can tell you mentioned the f-word.

One aspect that grabbed my attention was Dave Lamb, who was in the show's "Fact Bunker" checking out all the answers, and who only appeared on a television inside the studio. The thing is, I reviewed his radio show last week, in which he played an agoraphobic conspiracy theorist, and now he's on a TV show with a studio audience, but not appearing in front of them in the flesh. Is this where he gets his ideas from?

In terms of intellectual comedy, I don't think you can top QI, but Big Ask is a decent attempt and is no doubt much cheaper, which is important to a digital channel facing competition from bigger broadcasters. On this show they don''need to spend money on researchers - instead they spend the money on electronic tablets for each of the panellists, because let's be fair it is a bit of bore just using your mouth.

Having said that, I still think that it was an entertaining pilot and I hope a full series comes out of it.

Review: Alexander Armstrong's Big Ask

The format is essentially Alexander Armstrong presents a topic to a panel of three comedians and the panel must take it in turn to ask interesting questions to the other two panellists. Got it? To be honest Katy Brand, Griff Rhys Jones and Robert Webb didn't really get it either at first.

Quiz show producers looking to make cuts: why not do away with researchers altogether? Alexander Armstrong invites Robert Webb, Katy Brand and Griff Rhys Jones to not only answer some QI-style questions, but to come up with their own questions too. As Webb, grabbing the hand that feeds and munching it like a corncob, says: "We all know where we are. This channel isn't called David." If the pilot doesn't grab your attention, the tossed-together studio set might: a derangement of union flag coffee table and skyline glimpsed through American chatshow blinds.

Like a more relaxed version of QI after sinking a couple of glasses of Pinot Grigio, this new panel show asks its guests not only to provide the answers, but also to dream up the questions themselves from various "random" topics.

The money they've saved on employing researchers to do this must have been spent on guests because Robert Webb, Katy Brand and Griff Rhys Jones all look very happy to plonk themselves on the comfy armchairs and trot out the bizarre facts they just happen to know about Brazil or Captain Cook.

The show also boasts Dave Lamb (the voice of Come Dine With Me), who is criminally underused here as the fact checker in an underground bunker.

Hosting knockabout comedy quizzes is a useful sideline for Alexander Armstrong. But despite being the most comfortable host of Have I Got News for You, he doesn't always strike gold (Best of the Worst, Don't Call Me Stupid). Maybe this quiz pilot will change his fortunes. Contestants (Robert Webb, Katy Brand and Griff Rhys Jones) gain points for devising a question that will flummox the others, while Dave (Come Dine with Me) Lamb chips in from the "Fact Bunker". It's more Reithian than the average panel show, but the best bits are the detours: Webb goading Armstrong with "I like it when you do your One Show voice", and Jones looking peeved with a low score for one of his jokes.