Robert Webb

The penultimate episode of Mitchell and Webb's third series is something of an oddity, because there's not really a lot to love or hate. Most of the sketches fell somewhere in the middle and even the successes weren't as sharp as usual, but it still passed the half-hour well enough.

We love David 'Accountant' Mitchell and Robert 'Flashdance' Webb - they were great on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross a couple of weeks ago, don't you think? - but we do wish they'd turn down the canned laughter in Mitchell and Webb. Whatever, tonight, a pair of cellists want to build an airport and there's some bad news about toast...

That Mitchell And Webb Look 3.4 Review

A definite return to form after last week's disappointment, thankfully. 80% was good, 10% great, 10% bad, and that's not to be sniffed at. As always, it's just nice to get mostly new content in a sketch show every week, and Remain Indoors is a weekly dose of genius...

A razor-sharp Kitchen Nightmares spoof gets tonight's show off to a scintillating start as a foul-mouthed Ramsayesque chef is told home truths by a culinary casualty. So far this third series has been patchy in places but tonight's bumper crop proves the duo can still come up with some of biggest and cleverest laughs on TV.

Tucked in between Thursday night's line-up of swords, smut and sorcery in Krod Mandoon and the bizarre brilliance of Psychoville, David Mitchell and Robert Webb's clever, crafted sketches act as a bit of a palate cleanser - a brief return to a sane world we can vaguely recognise.

The sketches where they painstakingly point out the basic idiocy of other TV shows always hit the mark and Webb's shouty, swearing TV chef who says "balls" a lot is a highlight.

So is Mitchell as a soothsayer in ancient Pompeii. Midway through series three, their policy of spreading their comedy net far and wide means their material is still as fresh as ever - unlike many sketch shows that rely on trotting out the same characters and catchphrases week after week for easy laughs.

That said, their running parody of a 70s sitcom - Get Me Hennimore! is totally inspired silliness.

This week's targets for David Mitchell and Robert Webb's satire include a shouting TV chef and homeopathy - both almost too easy to make fun of, you might think, but they find clever new ways. Even if the idea of a Casualty-style drama set in homeopathic A & E department doesn't make you laugh ("His chakras are fading! We're gonna need more crystals!"), the doctors' after-work trip to the pub should. Mitchell is on romping form, as good playing a soothsayer in Pompeii or a man who doesn't understand what an X on the end of an email means. There are dud moments - a swinger sketch doesn't even nearly work - but four weeks in, their stock of sharp ideas doesn't look like running out.

TV Review: That Mitchell and Webb Look

This is Mitchell and Webb, but I still feel hung up about how I just don't like them in this particular guise.

That Mitchell And Webb Look 3.3 Review

The worst episode so far, sadly. Mid-series episodes don't tend to be the strongest in sketch shows, and episode 3 was definitely lacking the big laughs and intelligent ideas Mitchell and Webb are capable of. However, the new sports drink Glucozade Port (alcoholic isotonic); and a Bond spoof where Agent Suave visits a casino of parlour games were highlights.

Series three continues in its now characteristically variable form, but what's attractive about That Mitchell and Webb Look is that it never seems to take itself too seriously. The evidence: a sketch tonight mocking the variability of Mitchell and Webb sketches.

Very much a game of two halves this week. In the plus column: a cheeky vegetarian backlash, the tragically oblivious weatherman and a disco-dancing Mr Darcy. But the ace in the pack is a sublime demolition of spy-in-a-casino film cliches, which pits a Bond clone against a Blofeld type in a game not of roulette or poker, but of guess the weight of the cake. Robert Webb seems to have been made up to look like Damian Lewis, and David Mitchell like Lucius Malfoy from the Harry Potter films, but that just adds to the surreal fun. The show tails off rather meekly with a mixture of head-in-hands cringe and wasted-effort caper (no, not Sir Digby Chicken-Caesar again!). But the memory of the croupier raking mounds of fruitcake across the gaming table is hard to shake.