Simon Amstell

Have you been watching ... Grandma's House?

As Simon Amstell's sometimes uncomfortable sitcom nears the end of its second series, the performances and writing look increasingly impressive.

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).

The final episode of Simon Amstell's gently hysterical sitcom finds him being forced out of the house, Auntie Liz declaring that "It's like a drug addict, you can't keep supporting them." Salvation, it seems, comes in an unexpected invitation to join the beloved Ben Theodore in Hollywood, although highlight of the night has to be Clive's rendition of "Sex on Fire".

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.

Simon Amstell's sharp Jewish sitcom in which he plays a slightly skewed version of himself continues to charm. In tonight's thoroughly farcical episode Simon plans on taking newly kleptomaniac Grandma (Linda Bassett) to see a counsellor before heading off on a date. Things go awry when a bumbling Clive (James Smith) turns up and makes a confession about an entanglement with Liz (Samantha Spiro).

The problem with the first series of Grandma's House was, to put it bluntly, Simon Amstell himself - he may be a talented comic and writer, but his total absence of acting ability or personal warmth made the show feel strained and awkward. Unable to ignore the problem any longer (the fact that every single review pointed it out can't have helped), Amstell has pulled the oldest comedians' trick and turned his failing into an asset with a plotline that sees 'Simon' taking a part in a new production of The Tempest, but finding himself incapable of expressing any kind of normal human emotion. The rest of the episode offers up the basic sitcom antics - there's a male stripper in the house! - with a fistful of decent gags and some fine supporting performances.

Simon Amstell as himself beats Matt LeBlanc as himself

Even if one day he becomes the first man to set foot on Mars, Matt LeBlanc will always be better known as "former Friends star Matt LeBlanc".

Simon Amstell interview

For the past couple of years, Simon Amstell has been shut away in a TV studio making two series of his deeply personal BBC2 sitcom, the painfully funny, critically-acclaimed Grandma's House. Now he is back in stand-up mode.

Simon Amstell's writing partner Dan Swimer has said there's unlikely to be a third series of Grandma's House, which would be a huge pity.

But like Fawlty Towers which also left us wanting more, tonight's episode has the real whiff of comedy legend about it.

As the tension is gradually cranked up throughout the half-hour, the payoff is an absolutely classic scene which deserves to be repeated in comedy clip shows for years to come.

Simon, of Never Mind the Buzzcocks fame, is in rehearsals for the opening of his play and is worried (with very good reason) that his limited acting skills won't stretch to crying on cue.

And there are subtle nods here to Simon's obsessively healthy eating habits as well as his less angelic habit of ripping into celebrities. But it's also his mother's birthday and she has decided to book herself a stripper.

Rebecca Front, who plays Tanya so perfectly, has an absolute whale of a time this week. The sight of Tanya's birthday present to herself grimly gyrating around Grandma's three-piece suite in a fireman's outfit is enough to make you weep with laughter.

Simon Amstell's lack of acting talent rears its head again in another corker of an episode, focusing on his impending new play. Meanwhile, Clive reaches breaking point on the day of Tanya's birthday. Linda Bassett steals the show as Amstell's grandmother, though, her incessant fussing poignantly masking her grief for her late husband. If only she could follow her daughters' example in saying what she thinks.