Rosamund Hanson

Ryan Sampson wants Rosamund Hanson in Plebs

The 29-year-old actor is keen for the 25-year-old star, who is known for her role as Smell in film and TV series This Is England, to play his alter-ego's sibling in the ITV2 comedy and is also hoping the hapless slave gets a romantic interest if the show gets recommissioned for a third series.

There's a danger in bigging something up before it's had time to find its feet but if Sky is looking for a British answer to Girls - and surely it is - then it should take a good look at Aphrodite Fry.

Him & Her star Sarah Solemani's entry into the entertaining Love Matters (Sky Living) run of comedy shorts is surely worth working up into a full series.

Featuring the romantic misadventures of a Brighton mural artist, clad in trademark orange boiler suit, Aphrodite had echoes of a homegrown Hannah Horvath as she out to strike a blow for feminism after a disturbing sexual encounter. Or, as flatmate Toe put it: 'You're upset that bloke drained his spuds on you.'

That Toe is played by the hugely funny Rosamund Hanson (Smell from This is England) is just one of Aphrodite Fry's attractions. Warm and tough by turns, its take on the minefield of modern romance was blessed with that rare thing, an original voice. Actually forget Girls - Aphrodite is her own woman.

Sadly, it looks as though there will be no second series of Life's Too Short, but my favourite comedy of 2011 enjoyed a last hurrah, thanks to a one-hour special that addressed many of the faults, and played to the strengths, of its first run.

Gone were the gratuitous physical humiliations visited upon star Warwick Davis, along with the David Brent mannerisms bequeathed him by writers Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant.

Instead, Davis was given free rein to explore the comic potential of his complex, conflicted and constantly embattled character. Rosamund Hanson provided scene-stealing support as dippy secretary Cheryl.

Extra helpings of guest stars playing either unflattering or unsympathetic versions of themselves were also served up. Shaun Williamson, Keith Chegwin and Les Dennis all made a welcome return - "Three Z-list celebrities make one D-list celebrity," encouraged Davis as they embarked on their All Star roadshow - with a surprise appearance from the former Hollywood star and one-time screen Batman Val Kilmer.

With an enthusiasm that bordered upon self-flagellation, Kilmer portrayed himself as a slightly deranged fantasist and maniacal con man who raises, and then shatters, Warwick's dreams of a sequel to Willow.

Painfully poignant, beautifully played and constantly inventive, this one-hour special conclusively proved that Life's Too Short's own end was also premature.

Isy Suttie (Peep Show's Dobby) kicks off tonight's brace of romantic comedies as Miss Wright, a café waitress whose amorous fantasies break out into song whenever a certain ticket collector puffs into view. In Aphrodite Fry, Sarah Solemani (Him & Her) stars as a mural artist for whom a brusque one-night stand leads her to contemplate the shortcomings and goings of life. They make a sharp and funny pair, with splendid support turns from Rebekah Staton and Rosamund Hanson.

I am still a little worried that Harvey Easter, the indefatigably cheery protaganist of Mr Blue Sky, will someday soon rip the mask of optimism from his face and go on a killing rampage, starting with his live-in son-in-law-to-be. As this young man, a grimestep DJ who is paid in energy drinks and therefore returns to the Easter household at 5am on a Red Bull high, is called Kill-R, it will give Harvey the opportunity to snarl: "Who's the killer now?" as he takes aim.

When I reviewed last year's first series of Andrew Collins' slow-burning hit comedy, I thought Harvey was bound to 'reverse into gloom' at some stage. The second series opened with his entire family kidnapped and replaced almost wholesale by the cast of TV's Outnumbered, but plucky old Harvey just got on with the job of being happy.

So Mark Benton's Harvey, a performance which is an essay in finely nuanced felicity (and how much harder must this be to play than the sobs of a broken man?) didn't falter even though the detached irony of Rebecca Front, last year's Mrs E, was replaced by Claire Skinner bringing with her Tyger Drew-Honey, both from Outnumbered. Skinner is the leading exponent of wringing comedic value out of the middle-class mum, determined never to yell "Because I said so." And I'm sure I'll get used to her in this, but for now I can't imagine her without chiselled-jawed, puppy-eyed Hugh Dennis as the husband who is a perpetual disappointment.

Tyger took over the role of 16-year-old Robbie with aplomb, asking for money to buy fruit - street slang for drugs - while their older child and bride-to-be, Charlie, was played by Rosamund Hanson with a quirkiness heightened by what was either a speech impediment or a plethora of tongue piercings. The darkness in this solidly engineered comedy, it transpires, is not embedded in Harvey's alter-ego, but swirls all around him as he attempts to hold it back like the tone-deaf, out-of-condition superhero he is.

Preview: Mr Blue Sky series two

Second season of Andrew Collins' warmly cosy Radio 4 comedy, starring Claire Skinner and Rosamund Hanson.

Rosamund Hanson: Ricky Gervais had me in stitches

Rosamund Hanson, star of Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant's new comedy Life's Too Short reveals why the duo are the perfect comedy dream team.