Samantha Spiro

An amazing lineup of comic actors have a ball playing historical figures in therapy opposite Rebecca Front's ever-patient psychologist. Julia Davis puts a new twist on the poetry of Sylvia Plath. Samantha Spiro is a ping-pong Audrey Hepburn, Mark Gatiss a superb Joan Crawford to Frances Barber's inspired Bette Davis. Katy Brand stars as one of three sweary Brontë sisters. It's the comedy equivalent of eating a lot of biscuits. If you miss it you will forgo the funniest thing on TV this year.

After a promising pilot last year, this fitfully funny set of vignettes based around famous women visiting a therapist (Rebecca Front) returns as a series. Boasting comedic talent such as Sharon Horgan, Samantha Spiro, Julia Davis, Katy Brand and Mark Gatiss - dragged up as Joan Crawford - it's a riot when it does very silly: Sylvia Plath channelling Pam Ayres in an attempt to lift her dark moods; the squabbling, doll-sized Brontë sisters, and Jacqueline du Pré communicating only via cello.

You can't libel the dead, which will be great comfort to Sky's lawyers as the Playhouse pilot from last year is expanded into a complete series.

Rebecca Front stars as a ­psychotherapist with a patient roster that reads like a Who's Who of famous women from history.

This show totally undermines the feminist message of the BBC's Up The Women, which Front also stars in, by depicting all females of achievement as neurotic loons. Still, one thing women have always been good at is laughing at themselves. I hope.

The make-up and wardrobe departments really excel ­themselves here. The joke works even before Bette Davis and Joan Crawford (Frances Barber and Mark Gatiss) open their mouths.

The squabbling Bronte sisters are brilliant, just as Samantha Spiro makes for a ­wonderfully convincing Audrey Hepburn.

And Sylvia Plath (Julia Davis) doing a Pam Ayres in an attempt to rid herself of demons is inspired. This must also be the first time that tragic cellist Jacqueline du Pre is treated as a figure of fun.

It shouldn't work, but it does.

Psychobitches, stars Rebecca Front as a therapist whose patient roster consists solely of famous women from throughout history. Essentially an excuse for a fast-paced series of disconnected sketches, this simple premise is only semi-successfully executed by co-writer/director Jeremy Dyson from The League of Gentlemen.

Resembling a surreal parody of the great In Treatment, the series begins with a neat visual gag involving Rosa Parks - I suspect that's the first and last time I'll ever place those words in that order - before roaring into gear with Front's Grandma's House co-star Samantha Spiro delivering a pitch-perfect evisceration of Audrey Hepburn's irritatingly kooky screen persona.

Unfortunately, it then devotes far too much time to a mirthless series of Brontë sisters sketches - no, it wouldn't be hilarious if they were portrayed as gruff, foul-mouthed northerners - and Julia Davis as Sylvia Plath, which, while beautifully performed, hammers its one joke into the ground. Elsewhere, Frances Barber and a dragged-up Mark Gatiss (Dyson's League of Gentlemen cohorts crop up throughout the series) sell the hell out of a warring Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, but without banishing memories of French & Saunders' superior take on their feud. The only other sketch that really takes flight is Sharon Horgan as a glamorously self-obsessed Eva Peron.

As an excuse for a cast of talented, funny women to show off their versatility, Psychobitches is a success. But reducing Front to a straight role feels like a waste of her abilities, which merely adds to the overall air of mild disappointment.

After an assured debut in 2010, this was the year that Simon Amstell and Dan Swimer's housebound sitcom really hit its stride. Amstell was still not the greatest actor in the world, but he was playing such an awkward version of himself it didn't matter. He'd also surrounded himself with great characters, played by great actors (Rebecca Front, James Smith, Samantha Spiro, Linda Bassett). While being audaciously self-referential - Amstell's ill-advised joke about Russell Watson's brain tumour on BBC Breakfast was used as a plot device - it was ultimately warm-hearted, with deft scripting that skipped from lunacy to poignancy without missing a beat.

No relation to the Simon Nye-scripted ITV offerings from the turn of the millennium, this John Bishop-devised comedy drama peeks behind the scenes of a provincial panto. Radio jock Lewis Loud (Bishop) is preparing for his stage debut while wooing co-starring soap actor Tamsin (Sheridan Smith), while ex-wife Gina has plans to disrupt any backstage harmony. Whatever you may think of Bishop, a cast including Samantha Spiro and (yes!) Chesney Hawkes suggests this may be a decent accompaniment to the annual search for that elusive final Quality Street fudge.

Young Rebecca is in tears at the prospect of going to school, throwing her uniform and satchel out of her bedroom window. Is she suffering from school phobia brought on by starting "big school" as the so-called experts believe, or is there something deeper at play?

Rebecca and Jeremy Front's charming period piece explores the gulf between childhood fears and adult understanding of them with gentle humour and a great heart, while steering clear of trite nostalgia. Lucy Hutchinson is terrific as the morbid young Rebecca, while Samantha Spiro and Richard Lumsden deliver their usual quality, and Front (hapless MP Nicola Murray in The Thick of It) is commanding as the kindly headmistress who comes to young Rebecca's aid.

The second series of this sharp sitcom - in which Simon Amstell plays an insecure version of himself - ends tonight with an episode involving Pinteresque levels of family squabbling and unfulfilled ambition. The problems begin when Simon learns that his latest theatrical venture - a role in a production of Shakespeare's The Tempest - is in jeopardy, and they're compounded by some wonderfully bitter infighting between Tanya (Rebecca Front) and Liz (Samantha Spiro).

Things are looking up for Simon Amstell's character as tonight's episode of this sterling sitcom opens. He's back on television, much to the relief of Mum (Rebecca Front) - "I wasn't sure how much longer I could keep paying my own mortgage" - an interview on Radio 2 is on the cards, and a windfall from Granddad's will means he can finally move out to Hackney ("I'm going to be a cool artist person"). Meanwhile Liz (Samantha Spiro) is planning a charity quiz and threatens to get Simon involved.

It's the penultimate episode of Simon Amstell's meta-comedy, which this week weaves his real-life Russell Watson incident - a joke on breakfast TV about the focus on the opera singer's tumour - into the plot. Simon's plans to move out suffer yet another setback, while Samantha Spiro continues to steal the show as hilariously grotesque Auntie Liz.