Robert Webb

"I'm a sex champion, and I'd like a trophy," declares Robert Webb, setting the gloriously quirky tone for a sketch show which, at the start of its fourth series, seems to have lost none of its originality. David Mitchell is perfect as the conscientious small shopkeeper who gamely cobbles something together using a snooker player and a badminton figurine. The skits range in subject from the timeless to the contemporary, puncturing pomposity whether the subject is Caesar referring to himself in the third person (and getting very confused in the process) or Apple's cooler-than-thou advertising campaigns. Even the fact that the duo once promoted the Mac themselves hasn't detered them.

As ever with this duo, most famous for their roles in the deliciously dark Channel 4 sitcom Peep Show, their verbal flair is evident. A generic 1970s-style company is called "Amalgamated Perforations", neatly skewering the meaninglessness of corporate language, while the head of a leading cosmetics laboratory berates his team of scientists for "wasting their time" on making genuine scientific breakthroughs. "Does perpetual motion do anything for the Sleek and Shiny range?" he demands huffily.

There's also a sketch about a couple who are forever having vicious arguments in front of their baby. The couple are played by Webb and his real-life wife, Abigail Burdess; although we presume the sketch has no autobiographical basis...

It's never easy sizing up a new series from David Mitchell and Robert Webb. In a previous series the pair performed a skit about the fact that critics invariably refer to sketch shows as "patchy"; tonight they play super-serious versions of themselves who dismiss the show as "a sneering pantomime of impudent crud". They've basically spiked your guns before you start. So I'll limit myself to this: the first episode is very funny at times, less funny at others, but all enjoyable. And if you've ever been annoyed by people pronouncing "H" as "haitch", you're in luck.

It's impossible not to be cheered up by the return of Mitchell and Webb. They're unfailingly funny, even if their material isn't.

So let's get the bad news out of the way. Two running sketches - Get Me Hennimore! and the British Emergency Broadcasting Service - return, although they've been pretty much sucked dry of comedy potential already. And the first sketch is probably the weakest - a good idea that peters out before it finds its punchline. I can only advise you to think of Robert Webb doing Flashdance in his black leotard to top up the giggle level during the weaker bits.

But there's a brilliant sketch set in the white-coated world of Laboratoire Garnier which also features David Mitchell as a Victorian northern mill owner.

And two more skits are tailor-made for Mitchell's pedantry. He's one of the few comedians who can make grammar hilarious. There's also a guest spot from Keeley Hawes - well, she is in everything else these days.

One last thing: Robert Webb

With That Mitchell And Webb Look returning, Robert Webb meets Rich Pelley to talk Wombles, David Cameron and wiping his bum on swans.

David Mitchell & Robert Webb interview

Funnymen David Mitchell and Robert Webb are back with a new series and they are still making each other laugh...

Five Minutes With: David Mitchell and Robert Webb

Comedy duo David Mitchell and Robert Webb talk to Matthew Stadlen about how they started working together, the highs and lows of being comedians and the joys of having a rant.

That Mitchell and Webb look

Self-professed young fogey David Mitchell and leotard-averse Robert Webb discuss their fashion influences.

Now here's a treat for an Easter Monday night; just as you look back fondly on the four-day bank holiday weekend and look forward not too fondly to returning to work tomorrow, Channel 4 have taken it upon themselves to cheer you up. They've skimmed the cream of comedy talent for a gala night dedicated to making us laugh, while raising funds for the Great Ormond Street Hospital's Children's Charity. The night will fund two new anaesthetic rooms, allowing parents to stay with their children right up until they enter the operating theatre. Make sure you watch tomorrow's brilliant documentary, Great Ormond Street (9pm BBC2), to get some idea of the astonishing work done at the hospital. The cast of comics is a glittering one: David Mitchell, Bill Bailey, Catherine Tate, Jack Dee, James Corden, Jo Brand, Jonathan Ross and many, many others will perform stand-up routines in front of a capacity crowd at the massive O2 Arena in London. As a nice little bonus, Robert Webb, Ricky Gervais, Derren Brown and Johnny Depp, who can't be there in person, have filmed comic sketches especially for the night.

David Mitchell explains why he does so many panel shows

David Mitchell, 35, is best known for his comedy work with Robert Webb on Peep Show and their sketch show That Mitchell And Webb Look. His new topical panel show The Bubble starts tomorrow night on BBC2.

Vent, on the other hand, looks the terrifying in the eye and makes it funny. A sitcom about Ben, a man who fell into a sudden coma (yes, really), the first episode of this new series had Ben returning home, still pretty disabled, after months of being locked inside his failing body, unable to communicate. We hopped between real life - the ambulance, Ben's house, his life before his accident - and Ben's virtual reality, where his small daughter has grown up enough to hang out and give him advice, and there's a never-ending panel show going on, hosted by Robert Webb.

Strange? Yes. But witty and human too. Though the banter between Neil Pearson as Ben and Fiona Allen as his wife, Mary, occasionally erred on the Seinfeld side of sentimentality - no couple wisecrack all the time - this was convivial, clever drama. How refreshing to listen to a Radio 4 comedy that you feel you must keep up with, rather than one where you can predict every line.