Roger Lloyd Pack

Written by Peep Show creators Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong, with assistance from Simon Blackwell, The Old Guys is a reasonably successful attempt at fitting their "edgy" comic sensibilities - they also contribute to The Thick of It - within a more traditional mainstream framework.

Amusing, lively and nicely performed, this comedy about mismatched OAPs, played by sitcom stalwarts Roger Lloyd-Pack and Clive Swift, has improved since its first series.

Lloyd-Pack in particular looks far more comfortable, and hogs all the best lines as a feckless old hippie.

While the similarities to Peep Show, in terms of dialogue and characterisation, are still distracting, The Old Guys has an agreeable charm of its own. Ignore the woeful My Family which goes out before it: the mainstream sitcom is far from dead.

The Old Guys Review

The rather conventional sitcom starring Roger Lloyd-Pack and Clive Swift didn't cause too many ripples when it debuted last year, but it's receiving a fair bit of hype this time round. For the most part, this hype is deserved.

Young at heart

The sex lives of the over-sixties is not a subject you often hear about on TV but a BBC sitcom about just that, The Old Guys, has been a hit. The Scotsman talks to two of its stars [Roger Lloyd Pack and Jane Asher] about getting on... and behaving badly.

Sound the trumpets: it's a new sitcom from writers Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong, the team behind Channel 4's wonderful, Bafta-winning Peep Show. And they haven't strayed far from that show's premise: two blokes living together and getting on each other's nerves. The difference is age - this is Peep Show crossed with One Foot in the Grave, if you like.

Tom (Roger Lloyd-Pack) is a feckless baby-boomer, who has never quite left the 60s behind; Roy (Clive Swift) is more the old-style suburban pensioner. Their banter revolves around who will get Alzheimer's first, whose bladder is stronger and who has the better chance with glamorous neighbour Sally (Jane Asher).

The writing is as sharp as you'd expect and the performances might just gel into something special.