Sarah Hadland

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.

Nobody laughs for you in The Job Lot, which is full of those poised silences that are a feature of modern sitcom style, as non sequiturs falter to a stop or a character is left to silently absorb the absurdity of someone else's behaviour. But there is plenty for you to laugh at yourself. Sarah Hadland plays Trish, the job centre manager, in a way that makes you completely forget her more cartoonish performance as Stevie in Miranda, and Russell Tovey appears as Karl, a disenchanted employee who walks out after dealing with a particularly reluctant job seeker, and then walks straight back in again when he catches sight of the beautiful new temp.

There's a nice turn by Jo Enright too as Angela, a surly bureaucratic jobsworth. Most importantly, the comedy lies not in the lines as such but somewhere between what's said and how it's said. "I'd go mad if he wasn't here... I really would," says Trish brightly, commending Karl to the new girl. "I'd self-harm." And then, instead of the grating coercion of mass guffawing you get an awkward silence, as Trish realises she's said too much and the other characters try to think how to fill the gap. In my case, it was filled with a laugh.

The Job Lot is a new sitcom that is bang-up-to-date, being set in a West Midlands job centre. It's written by Claire Downs, Ian Jarvis and Stuart Lane, and direct by Martin Dennis.

Sarah Hadland is Trish, the neurotic and passive-aggressive office manager, and Russell Tovey is her shy assistant Karl - like her, unlucky in love. Trish, a great fan of both the clipboard and the white board, tries to gee up her staff with feelgood workshops ("Turn the unemployed into the funemployed," she writes on the latter) and has to deal with the recalcitrant Angela - "I'll contact the union" - whom she once sacked but has been reinstated after a tribunal. Karl is bored out of his mind, dealing with clients such as Bryony (Sophie McShera from Downton Abbey doing a nice turn) who last night "caught" MS in her determination never to find work.

The quiet first episode of The Job Lot was overpopulated by misfits - a clean-freak, a moonlighting security guard, a dimwit jobseeker - but both the sit and the com have promise.

The Job Lot is [compared to fellow ITV sitcom Vicious] a gentler, more deadpan prospect from three first-time writers, following the travails of the employees and clients of a Midlands job centre. Sarah Hadland and Russell Tovey do their best in the leads, but it's a familiar premise lacking in one-liners. It does show occasional promise, especially during one protracted sequence unravelling the absurd red tape apparently wrapped around the jobseeking process. But it's good-natured and well performed, if light on laughs.

Sarah Hadland (Miranda's Stevie) and Russell Tovey head up the second of tonight's ITV sitcom double-bill. It's Trollied relocated to a job centre, with manager Trish and pet underling Karl tackling the trials and tribulations of the poor souls stuck on both sides of the counter. Frustrated Karl badly wants out - until a gorgeous temp (Emma Rigby) shows up. While over at front desk, newly-redundant job-seeker Sunil (Teachers' Navin Chowdhry) can't get past miserable jobsworth Angela (Jo Enright).

A comedy set in a job centre in the Midlands - doesn't exactly sound like a bundle of laughs, does it? And while the script doesn't aim to pump out one-liners like Vicious, The Job Lot has sharply observed characters played by a classy ensemble cast. Among them are Sarah Hadland (Stevie from Miranda) as neurotic manager Trish; Russell Tovey as daydreamer Karl, so fed up with his dead-end job he'd almost rather join the dole queue; and Jo Enright as Angela, the Rosemary West of careers advisers.

The shadow of The Office looms over this new sitcom, set in Brownall Job Centre in the West Midlands, and it largely delivers, thanks to a cracking script and some winning performances. Brittle, nervy Trish (Miranda star Sarah Hadland) runs the office, aided by frustrated graduate Karl (Russell Tovey), and the marvellously dour Angela (Life's Too Short's Jo Enright), among the regular staff and jobseekers. This week sees a display of petty bureaucracy from Angela, while Karl uses his degree in an ill-judged manner.

I feel ever so sorry for ITV's second new sitcom of the night for having to follow a tough act like Vicious... The Job Lot, set in a job centre don'tcha know, can't help but pale in comparison to the savage brilliance of Ian McKellen and Co.

And that's a shame because while it's not going to win any prizes for originality (League Of Gentlemen's job-seeker sketches set the bar pretty high on that score), it's a perfectly respectable addition to the clutch of office-based sitcoms.

Plus it's from Big Talk, the company that gave us Spaced, Black Books, Rev, Friday Night Dinner and Him & Her, so it knows about sitcoms.

Sarah Hadland, Russell Tovey, Martin Marquez and Emma Rigby are among the staff turning the unemployed into the funemployed, with varying degrees of success.

But the biggest surprise of the night must be actress Sophie McShera being cast as a job-seeker who's turned being work-shy into a something of a full-time career. It's Downton's Daisy Mason as you've never seen her before.

In tonight's highly strung, celeb-sprinkled outing, Miranda realises she doesn't love homely Mike, and "Queen of Pushy" Penny soon finds a way to make her dinner party the talk of the tennis club.

The episode is both hysterical and maddening, its plot riven with sitcom complication, but the outcome will make you wish the finale had followed on immediately afterwards. A word of praise for Sarah Hadland as Miranda's sparky pal Stevie, who always keeps the laughs ticking over with a sulky strut here and a beautifully tortured metaphor there. And for Dominic Coleman as a total stranger who somehow becomes entangled in every plot twist.

Births, Deaths and Marriages is a new sitcom written by and starring David Schneider as Malcolm Fox, a by-the-book and seemingly dull registrar.

The registry office has recently taken on a new manager from the local car parking department called Lorna (Sarah Hadland), who has some odd ideas on increasing profit, such as converting the stationary cupboard into a reception room, organising weddings at theme parks, and limiting other weddings to ten minutes in length.

There are some strong moments in Births, Deaths and Marriages. For example, Malcolm having to officiate a wedding taking place on a roller coast, despite his crippling vertigo - and Schneider can certainly perform well - but I'm unsure about the quality of material.

I can't help but think that the wedding vows are there purely to take up space on the script. Also, the show follows the gag about disabled people not having a leg to stand on. A bit old hat, don't you think?