Russell Tovey

It's gone from the BBC Three backwater to official National Treasure status in a couple of years, and its popularity even seems to have survived the abomination that was Horne & Corden. Now Gavin & Stacey returns for its third and final series. The first series saw the titular couple fall in love and get married, the second followed them having marital troubles so where next? This being the end I'm assuming there'll be a sprog by the end of the series to add to Nessa's gloriously named Neil Noel Edmond.

What we do know is that after last year's Christmas Special Gavin has taken a job in Cardiff so Gwen has plenty of people to make omelettes for, while Pam has an empty nest. Smithy's still not happy about his son getting a new dad in the form of Dave Coaches, and Uncle Bryn continues to be Uncle Bryn. And hopefully there'll be plenty of the real star of the show, namely Doris. Russell Tovey is due to make his annual cameo as Budgie later in the run, and rather excitingly Pam Ferris joins the cast as Smithy's mum (I'm kinda hoping she, like the rest of her family, is also called Smithy.) Enjoy it 'cause there's only six weeks of it left. Unless there's a Doris spin-off. Actually come on, somebody MAKE THIS HAPPEN!

Nick Hornby is arguably an accomplished writer, but as his new book hits the shelves and his screenplay for An Education reaches the silver screen, this comedy series co-written with journalist Giles Smith shows signs that he is spreading himself too thinly. The tale of an idiotic, ageing rock drummer who has inadvertently become the richest man in Britain, it relies too heavily on one-note gags about his wealth, while ignoring any potential to explore deeper themes. The talents of Mark Williams, Russell Tovey and Lynda Bellingham are wasted as the rock star, his personal manager, and his dotty mother. Shame.

Thoughtful, inventive comedy by Adam Rosenthal and Viv Ambrose. Newfangle (Russell Tovey) is one of a tribe of humans at an early, pre-verbal stage of development. Picked on by the alpha male (Hugh Bonneville), hopelessly in love, looked down on by his mother (Maureen Lipman) who prefers his brother (Gabriel Vick), Newfangle is a thinker and one day, wishing to express his thoughts out loud, he invents language. Then people start using it for things he didn't intend. Soon prehistory turns out to quite a lot like life anywhere, anytime. But funnier.

I love this. I love everything about it - from Russell Tovey's aping of the lowly hominid of the title who invents language to express his unrequited love and his protests about always being beaten up by the alpha male, to Adam Rosenthal and Viv Ambrose's gloriously scrumptious and clever script. Set in the primordial mud, a group of apes on the brink of evolving into humans grapple with those things that progress entails. And yet, their hierarchies and obsessions seem awfully familiar and modern. Probably coming to a TV series near you. Og me if it doesn't!

More inscrutable than admirable, Crichton is a butler who gets marooned on a desert island with his aristocratic employers. JM Barrie's comedy about the English class system shows how practical, resourceful Crichton (Russell Tovey) soon emerges as the natural leader, while his clueless 'superiors' are reduced to acolytes.

When the group are rescued, the toffs gratefully resume their former roles, and Crichton has to seek employment elsewhere. If the plot seems rather predictable now, it's Crichton's character that gives the play edge. Far from being the honest, working-class hero, there's a sadistic streak to Crichton, who sneers at this ignorance of more lowly servants, and clearly revels in humiliating the haughty Lady Many when he realises she's fallen in love with him. You may wonder whose side Barrie was really on.