Sam Wollaston

David Harewood appeared on Was it Something I Said?. That's quite a fall, from being head of the CIA to reading out quotes on a Channel 4 gameshow. Basically it's that Radio 4 show Quote Unquote on the telly, with David Mitchell asking the questions. And the questions being "who said this?" and "how does this quote go?"

Not the most imaginative format then, but of course it's not really about the game, it's about which panellist can be funniest. And the answer to that is Richard Ayoade. Certainly he's much funnier than his teammate Jimmy Carr; they don't seem to like each other very much either, which is quite jolly. No women about obviously, it being a panel show.

London Irish (Channel 4), a comedy about a bunch of young people from Northern Ireland living in the capital, kinda This Life for the 21st century (less posh, more rude, more regional) - probably cost about a 10th of what The Wrong Mans cost. It's set in a few rooms - the bedroom, the bar, that kind of thing - and you might not recognise anyone in it. But it's about eight times better. Because it's bold, and filthy, and a little bit anarchic, written with balls (by Lisa McGee). And it has some brilliant lines, like: "It looks like you were sexually assaulting my boyfriend's corpse" (she was). The Daily Mail hates it: that's good enough for me.

I'm not sure who Jim is in The Wrong Mans (BBC Two). But he phones Mr Stevens just at the right time. Or the wrong time, depending on how you see things and how you see James Corden in particular. You see, Mr Stevens, whose wife has been kidnapped by Mr Lau, has Corden's character Phil in a car crusher. It exerts 150 tonnes of pressure and can crush a car in 45 seconds, so it's not going to have much trouble with Phil, Mr Stevens tells him.

I think it's another film spoof. Goldfinger, Kick-Ass, Superman III, Pulp Fiction again? All of the above possibly. I know there's Hitchcock in there but I haven't been spotting all the film references in The Wrong Mans.

Go on then, Mr Stevens, let's see it, please! There are some - me included - who think that James Corden would be much improved by being subjected to 150 tonnes of pressure and crushed into a more compact cube-shaped version of James Corden. Where's his head? Oh, I see, round there, ha, yes I think that works.

No, I'm not being fattest, I'm being guffest. Meaning I'd like to see the guff, the hot air, all the shouting and laddishness, maybe the contents of his colon too, squeezed out of him. And if that makes him smaller, and cuboid, and therefore more easily stored away somewhere, then so much the better. I'm not a massive fan, can you tell? But then this bloody Jim rings, and Mr Stevens changes his mind about crushing Phil.

I'm not a massive fan of The Wrong Mans either. As I mentioned the other day, I suspect that Corden and Mathew Baynton are more performers than writers. This feels like they've sat down together, chuckling at everything and chucking everything at it - their favourite movies, a bag of poo, an awful lot of themselves, obviously. They've had a brilliant time making it ... yup, that's it, self-indulgence; I think they're having a much better time than I'm having, and I'm not sure that's how TV should be. Even though the BBC has clearly thrown a whole lot of money at it it, because these are big comedy stars and they've got some famous guests coming on too, it still doesn't work, because it's not smart enough in the first place. A comedy thriller that's too silly to be thrilling and not funny enough to be funny.

Oddly, I seem to be a little bit on my own here, and everyone else thinks it's brilliant. Yeah, well, everyone else is an idiot too then.

I quite enjoyed the beginning of The Wrong Mans (BBC Two), this new (very) British comedy crime caper written by and starring Matthew Baynton and James Corden. Bayton's character, Sam, gets up with a hangover while flashing back to a wild evening before. Then there's a car crash, which is surprising.

After which it surprises - and I liked it - less. In Sam's council office, where we meet James Corden (who plays James Corden - I'm not his number one fan, I'm afraid), it seems to be trying to be a bit like The Office, though less subtle and a decade on. Then, in a hospital, there's a hint of Green Wing about it, with the same speeding-up-the-action trick, but without the surreal joy. This is pretty crude, most of the humour based on mix-ups and misunderstanding (a trolley swap would have been funnier if the wrong leg had actually been amputated, instead of nearly amputated, though admittedly it would have made Bayton's role harder afterward). Nor am I gnawing my knuckles at the tension.

My editor, who is sane and wise and who has seen more of it, says it gets better. Hope so, because so far I'm not convinced by a comedy/thriller that isn't doing it for me as either. Nor that performers (mainly) necessarily make the best writers. Oh, and what's with that title? There's something wrong with it, isn't there? Grammatically?

The only real way to judge the first episode of any new sitcom is by the number of laughs per minute. I managed four in the 24 minutes (including ad break) of Chickens (Sky 1); which is substantially above average, given that some time has to be spent establishing the characters and the sit in the sitcom. Chickens began life as a pilot for Channel 4. Not having seen the pilot, I've no idea why it got turned down, but I'd be willing to bet Sky took a punt on commissioning a series on the proviso that writers Simon Bird, Joe Thomas and Jonny Sweet made it as much like The Inbetweeners as possible.

Chickens is set in the fictional town of Rittle-on-Sea in August 1914, just after the outbreak of the first world war. Much of the pre-publicity for the show has focused on the risky nature of its situation and the way it hopes to invert sexual stereotypes by placing three non-combatant men as a minority in a village run by women. Save that for a dinner party conversation, because Bird and Thomas are basically playing their Inbetweeners characters.

Bird is Cecil, who has been turned down by the army for having flat feet, but could just as well be Inbetweener Will. Both are brighter and better-intentioned than everyone else around, but end up misunderstood and picked on. Thomas is conscientious objector George, but could just as well be Simon, the Inbetweener who takes himself terribly seriously and isn't as bright as he thinks he is. Sweet wasn't in The Inbetweeners but his character, Bert the Bounder, could well have been. None of which is a problem as far as I'm concerned. I loved The Inbetweeners and I enjoyed this. And with luck it will get even better when the characters have settled in and Barry Humphries makes an appearance.

That Puppet Game Show (BBC1, Saturday) is yet another attempt to crack the Saturday evening family entertainment nut. That's Puppet, with a P, not with an M, though you could easily be mistaken; they share about 99% of their DNA with Kermit and co, and were made by the same company. But instead of a frog, this show is hosted by Dougie, a big-chinned fella with a hint of both Vernon Kay and Paddy McGuinness about him. And it's a game show. Two actual flesh'n'bone slebs (Jonathan Ross and Kathryn Jenkins, in the opener) compete against each other to win money for charidee.

Some of the games don't really work. Saucissong, for example - in which contestants have to remember which singing Scottish hotdog sang which bit of 500 Miles by the Proclaimers - quickly gets tedious. More about the name than the game, I'd say. Life's a Speech is better. It does all feel very 1987, but it's warm, funny at times, and the guests (so far) are game. It should become more interesting once you get to know the puppets' personalities a bit better. So far my favourite is an alcoholic armadillo called Ian.

Family Tree - TV review

Chris O'Dowd is very watchable in this BBC Two comedy, but there are no surprises here, or lols - or any sort of laughs

Up The Women (BBC4) also [like Psychobitches]] has fine performances by funny women, including Rebecca Front, and Jessica Hynes, who wrote it too. Hynes is a favourite of mine. It was a travesty that her wonderful nightmare PR character in Twenty Twelve was beaten to the Bafta by Olivia Colman (it was also a travesty that the overrated Twenty Twelve got the comedy Bafta ahead of Hynes's mate Julia Davis's way-more-brilliant Hunderby ... God, this is just all the same names coming up over and over again). Fans of Spaced may disagree, but on the basis of this, she's a better comic performer than she is a comic writer. They are, after all, totally different skills; writers and actors tend to be very different people.

It's not bad, it's just a bit staid. The fact that it's centred on a non-typical sitcom subject (the suffragette movement) can't disguise that it is a rather ordinary, old-fashioned sitcom. The door opens, someone comes in, does a gag, cue studio audience laughter. There's less living-room audience laughter in my house, certainly a lot less than in Psychobitches.

I've seen a few things in the Playhouse Presents series. A bit like going to slightly up-its-own-arse arty theatre (only with big name stars). In my house we've chortled loudly, not because we've thought something was funny but to show we've recognised it as a joke. And in the advert break we've rushed to the kitchen to down a couple of pre-poured and now warm glasses of white wine, after which the second half has been more bearable and passed faster.

Psychobitches, though, which piloted last year, flies past, and is genuinely hilarious. The idea - famous people from history visit a modern-day therapist - isn't entirely new, I don't think (perhaps you can think of the examples: I can't). But it's written, by a vast team of writers, with such originality and wit, imagination and cojones, that it feels like a whole blast of new. In my house at half-time, and again at the end, we were comparing, and reliving - and relaughing at - favourite bits and characters. A nightmarishly needy Audrey Hepburn; Bette Davis and Joan Crawford bitching and backstabbing and bashing each other over the head with their best actress Oscars (it manages to be both clever and silly, a very attractive combo); Margot Fonteyn being very very old; Jacqueline du Pré communicating only through her cello, expressing love, childhood, adultery, coriander (a mournful downwards glissando, perhaps to signify distaste, or wilting?).

My highlight is Julia Davis's Sylvia Plath, but a Sylvia Plath who deals with all her internal strife and angst by adopting the persona of fellow poetess ... Pam Ayres. Davis as Plath as Ayres: it's a mash-up from heaven. Sharon Horgan's delusional, egocentric, megalomaniacal Eva Peron is also a joy, sipping her boobles (champagne) and naming leedle seedies in Argentina after herself, who she refers to in the third person. And the puppet-sized Brontë sisters, coarse Yorkshire slags squabbling on the sofa, mainly about (not) losing their virginity. "It's not me who's the desperate one," Charlotte squawks to Emily. "I'm not the one gagging for it that much her fanny's frothing like a beck in a storm."

So many highlights in fact, and such great performances, from the aforementioned, and from Sam Spiro, Katy Brand, Frances Barber, Sarah Solemani, Zawe Ashton, Jo Scanlon and more. Not forgetting Rebecca Front, as the kind, deadpan, calm (mostly: Audrey pushes her), but also human and very subtly arch therapist. "What do you have?" she asks politely, after Nina Simone has soulfully wailed: "Ain't got no home, ain't got no shoes, ain't got no money, ain't got no class ...". The answer? Depression of course.

They all seem to be having such a brilliant time doing it, it's impossible not to get swept along in the tide of fabulousness and sharp writing and cleverness-meets-silliness, with just a pinch of coriander lunacy. This is very funny women at their very funniest. Oh, plus one man, Mark Gatiss as Joan Crawford, also lovely.

The Job Lot is a more interesting sitcom than Vicious. If Vicious feels pre-The Office, then this Midlands job centre-based comedy is more like Office copy. The mundane work environment, the juddery camera work ... it's not actually in mockumentary style, but it does look and sound a bit similar. Still, better to make something that feels like comedy from 10 years ago than 20, I suppose.

Ooooh, nas-tee. No, it really is better, because it's not just about the delivery of one-liners, it's about characters and situations that are nicely observed and recognisable. I love Jo Enright's Angela, a walking tribunal (almost certainly against you) who sucks the life and joy from the workplace. Every office has one, even this one. You know who you are, XXXXXXX XXXXXXX. Or maybe you don't ...

Nice performances from untitled Russell Tovey and Sarah Hadland too, acting with a lowercase a, which is sometimes preferable and a relief after the other. There's no audience laughter either, which is a certainly a relief. I could have done without the comedy plinky plonky music, though. I know when I find something funny; I don't need to be told by the music.

If Vicious and The Job Lot are ITV's big, triumphant, we're-back-to-prime-time-comedy fanfare, I'm wobbling a flat palm-down hand from side to side. Mmm, mixed. A bit safe and unadventurous, as you'd probably expect. Lower on LOLs than The Inbetweeners, or Peep Show, or Hunderby, or Him & Her, or lots of other funny recent shows not on ITV.