Simon Amstell

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.

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.

This knowing, beautifully nuanced sitcom reaches the halfway mark in its second series. Wannabe actor Simon (star and creator Simon Amstell) lands the role of Ariel in a new production of The Tempest, so he tries to learn how to cry on command. Elsewhere in his ever-chaotic family, Grandma (Linda Bassett) struggles to come to terms with Grandpa's death, and mother Tanya (The Thick Of It's excellent Rebecca Front) prepares a surprise for her own birthday, while her hapless fiancé Clive (James Smith) comes round in the loft after a heavy drinking session.

Simon Amstell has cunningly managed to deflect potential criticism of his acting skills in this sitcom in which he plays a version of himself.

"I'm doing vulnerability," he explained in last week's opener to season two. "I'm stiff in real life."

In which case, his performance here is absolutely bang on the money as he surfs the lumpy seas of his family's bitter squabbles with a rictus grin that is pitched midway between polite boredom and panic.

What this sitcom does so well is capture the ­claustrophobia of ­families who are close almost to the point of throttling one another.

"Isn't it nice we can all sit in a room together without any tension," his mother Tanya (Rebecca Front) lies tonight as her sister, Liz, arrives for another visit.

And Liz's husband Barry (Vincent Franklin) joins the cast this week.

He's a tedious, self-important git with post-nasal drip who is annoyingly reluctant to help Simon escape from his grandma's house by agreeing to rent him his flat in Soho.

The humour and the language in Grandma's House isn't ­nana-friendly.

But, as Simon and his cousin Adam discover grandpa's little secret up in the loft, there's a gag tonight about Jurassic Park that is a clear contender for one-liner of the year.

Series two goes up a gear when the superb Vincent Franklin arrives as Barry, husband of ratty aunt Liz (Samantha Spiro). Barry has mucus and a morbid obsession with rolling news, but he also has a flat in London that Simon Amstell (Simon Amstell) wants to borrow.

Barry fits right in as another source of tension that can't quite be smothered by domestic ritual. His pomposity is a good counterpoint to Clive (James Smith), who's getting more vulnerable, stuck in the loft fixing a leak. Clive emerges at the end for a tremendous comic pay-off.

The acting in this suburban hell sitcom keeps getting better. Watch as Sam Spiro vies for the attentions of Simon Amstell (who is celebrating some good career news) by showing off a fancy-dress costume. Meanwhile, her husband, Barry, is even more uptight than she is as he comes up with excuses to get out of lending Amstell his flat - which could be good news for love-struck alpha male Clive, who looks almost like a saint next to him as he toils away in the loft.

Following on from last week's droll, awkward tension, the second episode of Simon Amstell's gentle meta-sitcom continues in the same vein. This week, the 'Simon Amstell' character begins to seek (and beg) for alternative living arrangements and is desperate for the part of Ariel in a producer friend's new production of The Tempest ("Who's playing Prospero, June Sarpong?" snaps Auntie Liz). Once again, Rebecca Front steals the show as Simon's mum, Tanya, with a horde of smutty outbursts - "Clive is a generous, kind man. Let him have a wank in the loft" - and an outburst at Liz's husband Barry in the episode's finale. So far, the second series feels like more of the same. But the witty, understated dialogue make half an hour in Grandma's House strangely entertaining.

In the second episode in this new series of Simon Amstell's queasy postmodern sitcom, Simon Amstell, played by Simon Amstell, decides that it might be time for him to move out of his titular accommodation and into something a little more detached from his bickering relatives. Fortunately he may have found a saviour in the form of his Uncle Barry. As ever, Amstell's heavily self-referential script and performance make for a uniquely awkward viewing experience.

Rebecca Front has fun tonight as Simon Amstell's potty-mouthed mother Tanya in this sharply observed sitcom. A reconciliation with her sister Liz (Samantha Spiro) turns sour when Liz's mucus-ridden husband wavers on whether to let Simon borrow his flat in Soho. Much of the comedy revolves around a stash of pornography uncovered in the attic but it is the brilliant characterisation of toxic family relationships that brings in most of the laughs.

Something in the water

It's brilliant. It's recognisably a British take on suburban, middle-class manners and media exploitation, and the familiar if unusually-cast faces of Chris Langham and Simon Amstell also give you something to go on, but Black Pond is not your average film.