Simon Amstell

Sue Perkins debuted her brand new comedy Heading Out, looking at the travails of lesbian vet Sara, dealing with the onset of her 40th birthday, a new girl on the sofa, a dead cat... and the small matter of not being out to her parents.

The humour was swift-moving enough, with Sara inventing an absent salesman boyfriend for the benefit of the furrowed-brow parents. Not just any old absent salesman, but a French one, who sold prosthetic legs... of course.

As the writer on this too, Perkins packed it all in... ruminations with her cleanliness-obsessed best friend, her dealings with the feline crematorium manager, a disastrous netball match, a sweet meet-cute in the park with an errant dog owner, an equally disastrous surprise party - attended by not one but two potential girlfriends, as well as the aforementioned dead cat.

I had fears that the ever-likeable Perkins, like Simon Amstell in his Grandma's House, would be too familiar a face for us to lose ourselves sufficiently in this suburban caper. But her warm persona transferred robustly to the drama, which was set up perfectly for next week's therapy session with netball soldier turned life coach Toria (The Thick of It's Joanna Scanlan). In a word: Very promising (okay, two then).

Usually I tend not to cover solo stand-up shows on TV because they're usually just edited-down versions of DVDs, but this isn't the case with show from Simon Amstell. Fed up with all the stand-up DVDs out there, Amstell has decided to make to perform his latest stand-up show for the BBC rather than just release it as a DVD.

Numb, broadcast on BBC Four in a specially minimalist set at the TV Centre, is mostly about Amstell's own anxiety, relationships with his family, friends and boyfriends, and his views on pain, feeling and life itself.

There were so many high moments in the show, such as his experiences of holidaying alone in Amsterdam, going to a nude swimming pool, and how he is now so lonely he watches the least ethical porn he can find.

The show was indeed a good one, and for those who are perhaps not into this kind of comedy, Amstell could help start a trend. Hopefully other comedians might go this way of taking their comedy routines to TV rather than DVD. I would certainly welcome it.

Review - Numb: Simon Amstell Live at the BBC, BBC4

Is self-consciousness contagious? When I started watching Numb: Simon Amstell Live at the BBC I was feeling pretty relaxed. But by the end I was almost as knotted with anxieties as he is.

Simon Amstell: A seriously funny man

Simon Amstell has made a comedy career out of angst. But, thanks to a Peruvian shaman and a Parisian clown, he's now as happy as he's ever been, he tells Alice Jones.

So it's New Year's Eve, and the rest of the world is forming itself into a conga line outside your door. But what if you're just not a party person?

Instead of sobbing into your miniature of sherry, check out Simon Amstell's soul-searching stand-up set in which the star of Grandma's House and one-time Buzzcocks host comes clean about all the ways social situations leave him feeling lonely, disconnected and depressed.

Far from being a vein-opening hour of gloom, Simon is on sparkling form as he describes various doomed attempts to fit in with the cool but humourless London trendies he would love to be one of. A typical bad-party anecdote finds him reluctantly inhaling nitrous oxide out of balloons. "I don't do drugs, but I will if it comes in balloons," he explains.

It's so confessional, when the hour is up you feel like you should charge him £85 and remind him to make another appointment.

There were a few beacons of light [on New Year's Eve]. Normally the idea of a whole hour of a Simon Amstell stand-up routine would be at least half an hour too long, but in Numb: Simon Amstell Live at the BBC (BBC4) his morose, loser schtick was a welcome antidote to all the relentless cheeriness and ersatz sentiment everywhere else. Amstell's killer line was: "You wake up. And it just gets darker." Thanks to the rest of the TV schedules, I knew exactly what he meant.

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.

Ex-Buzzcocks host and Grandma's House star Simon Amstell takes his Numb tour to Television Centre. Dealing with Amstell's overbearing inability to connect with others, it's tempting to suggest this isn't the cheeriest option for those finding themselves alone on New Year's Eve, and in less adept hands such material might come across as leftover whine. Yet, when delivered with Amstell's engagingly weary incredulity, one can't help but be won over. At one point, he admonishes the audience with the words, "This is my actual life, not a fun night out!" It certainly makes for a captivating night in.