Sheila Reid

This is manna for lovers of the macabre - a shudder one minute, a cackle the next. Steve Pemberton's new character Hattie (surely a blood relation of The League of Gentlemen's Pauline) seizes her opportunity at a sham wedding, while Pemberton's Benidorm chum Sheila Reid shows up as another witchy gran, with designs on poor Tommy. The Sowerbutts plan a dinner party from hell, willing anaphylaxis upon shifty, peanut-sensitive Robin (David Bamber); Maureen (Reece Shearsmith) also subjects her guests to a party piece, which is, well, "simply the best!" Shearsmith is great too, without all the hideous make-up, as beyond-anal librarian Jeremy who sees David Lynch-ian phantoms between the bookcases - and stay alert for a cameo from another cult movie director, John Landis.

Sheila Reid: Women are having Madge-themed hen parties

Benidorm star Sheila Reid has revealed there are real life Madge-themed hen parties in the Spanish city - where women arrive on mobility scooters.

In tonight's double bill from 2008, vinegary gran Madge (Sheila Reid) meets her match in hard nut Sylvia - Wendy Richard in her first role after EastEnders. Their High Noon face-off around the pool in cowgirl hats and mobility scooters is a comedy classic. Meanwhile, the overweight swingers have managed to break a second bed at the Solana Resort, despite not "really going at it" and Jacqueline (saucy Janine Duvitski) keeping "one leg on the vanity unit". Benidorm benefits from a terrific ensemble, but tonight's second episode belongs to Siobhan Finneran - on another planet from her wicked soap-dropping O'Brien in Downton Abbey. As put-upon mum Janice, she's astonished by the advances of a randy Jack the lad, then stuns everyone by serenading oafish hubby Mick (Steve Pemberton) with Dead Ringer for Love at the karaoke. Like a post-watershed Corrie meets Carry On Abroad, Benidorm's hilarious sun-drenched bawdry is the perfect antidote to January blues.

Popular though it may be, Benidorm, the sitcom starring Sheila Reid, can be distasteful. In tonight's penultimate episode of the third series, dishonesty pervades the Spanish seaside resort: Gavin (Hugh Sachs) learns that Troy (Paul Bazely) is apparently cheating on him, while the elaborate stories of the Oracle (Johnny Vegas) land him in a spot of bother with the local police. Elsewhere, Diana (Una Stubbs) arrives to help her recently conned son Martin (Nicholas Burns) get back on his feet.

Nothing disappoints a British holidaymaker quite like a successful trip away; at least that's the comedy premise that's explored in the third season of this comedy. After the chaos surrounding their previous trip, we join our roster of British stereotypes gathering on a non-airconditioned coach in order to enjoy their compensatory free holiday. We then watch as this gift horse is looked in the mouth: it's like The Royle Family, but with sunburn. The amiable Geoff (Johnny Vegas) is an enjoyable feature, the incredibly caustic Madge (Sheila Reid) a riotously unlovable grandma.

In a soul-sapping television tradition of yesteryear, practically every sitcom would do a dire summer special in which the regular characters went to Spain and had unfunny encounters with the locals. Benidorm is like that in every single episode. This mirth-free atrocity about the antics of a gaggle of British oafs staying in the Spanish holiday resort has been running for two series, and returns tonight with an hour-long one-off. Sample japes: Mick (Steve Pemberton) wets himself in a police car, and Madge (Sheila Reid) is kidnapped while hitching a lift to hospital. Strange things, budgets: ITV apparently doesn't have enough money to make more of The South Bank Show, but it does have enough to persist with this twaddle.