Simon Amstell

Comedy gold: Simon Amstell's Do Nothing

Simon Amstell's soul-baring standup is part Samuel Beckett, part self-help manual - but entirely brilliant.

Series 26, episode one: team captains Noel Fielding and Phill Jupitus are back in their chairs for more rude pop-based quizzing. In the presenter's seat - still without a regular occupant since the peerless Simon Amstell resigned - is Kathy Burke. Her excellent comedy Walking and Talking showed she knows and loves her pop music, at least if it was released in 1979. Among the guests are Fazer from N-Dubz and surprise Olympic long jump champion Greg Rutherford.

Writers' Guild Awards 2012 shortlists

Best Radio Comedy: I, Regress - Matt Berry; Another Case of Milton Jones - Milton Jones, James Cary; In and Out of the Kitchen - Miles Jupp. Best TV Comedy: Holy Flying Circus - Tony Roche; PhoneShop - Phil Bowker, Jon MacQueen; Grandma's House - Simon Amstell, Dan Swimer.

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Cardinal Burns, Terry Alderton, Idiots of Ants, Simon Amstell and more.

"Do you need more acting lessons?" Rebecca Front's fame-hungry mum asks her struggling son (Simon Amstell).

Amstell's acting met with low-level sniping in the first series of his droll sitcom, but it barely matters when he's surrounded by a cast this funny, notably Front and James Smith. Here, Simon's TV career has nosedived, so he's reduced to living at his gran's and exposed to family tensions. Amstell's meta-comedy is, in the words of Larry David, pretty, pretty good.

Grandma's House left us hungry for a third series

Simon Amstell's suburban trauma Grandma's House series finale hit all the right notes, it would be a shame if it failed to return for another.

The current series of Grandma's House ended last night. At least I hope "current series" is accurate because Dan Swimer and Simon Amstell's comedy keeps getting better, its account of repressed feeling and family in-fighting beautifully discordant (the signature tune is perfect). Last night tuned the self-knowledge to an even higher pitch: "That would have been very funny if you'd laughed," Amstell told his mother, after accusing her of compensating for her own disappointing life by obsessing over his career. "Your silence made it seem a bit mean." And then it ended with him glumly watching an old Never Mind the Buzzcocks performance on YouTube, his dreams of love and happiness having evaporated. Hard to believe one laughs at all, really, but I did. A lot.

Simon Amstell and co-writer Dan Swimer know how to twist the knife in their characters. They're superb at making the front room of Grandma's suburban semi a hilarious, bay-fronted hell for all involved.

Tanya has married the dreadful Clive; Grandma is still quietly mad with grief ("I think I need to go and count my shoes"); and Simon is so out of place he might as well be adopted. But great sitcoms are all about that sense of being trapped, (from Steptoe to Reggie Perrin to Risgby to David Brent), and Grandma's House's great symphony of awkwardness climaxes tonight as Simon's boyfriend/director Ben drops by and Simon is caught between two worlds - both seemingly set on crushing him. It's a fabulous finale.

So, farewell then Grandma's House. In an era of identikit comedies and endless meta-sitcoms, it was a beacon of unsettling creativity. For once, the star really did seem to be playing himself rather than 'himself'; if it didn't always work, at least it tried. The performances are now such a diffuse grab-bag of styles and methods that it's become charming rather than jarring - not least when Grandma recalls her late husband. And Simon Amstell once again makes hay from his appalling acting, apparently either on the verge of cracking up or breaking the fourth wall as Ben (spaced-out Iwan Rheon) returns with an awful new chum in tow and some potentially life-changing news. A peculiar series that improved with age, but even so has probably bowed out at the right time.

Tonight is the last in the series of Simon Amstell's dark, self-referential family sitcom. It's Mum's big day, not that you'd know it. Auntie Liz is busy making arrangements for her anniversary party: "I've written a really funny quiz from the internet." And Simon is fawning over his LA-bound actor boyfriend. Will Simon abandon his own career and accompany him to Tinseltown? Amstell never misses an opportunity to pre-empt critics with knowing jibes at his own self-absorption.