Simon Blackwell

Written by Peep Show creators Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong, with assistance from Simon Blackwell, The Old Guys is a reasonably successful attempt at fitting their "edgy" comic sensibilities - they also contribute to The Thick of It - within a more traditional mainstream framework.

Amusing, lively and nicely performed, this comedy about mismatched OAPs, played by sitcom stalwarts Roger Lloyd-Pack and Clive Swift, has improved since its first series.

Lloyd-Pack in particular looks far more comfortable, and hogs all the best lines as a feckless old hippie.

While the similarities to Peep Show, in terms of dialogue and characterisation, are still distracting, The Old Guys has an agreeable charm of its own. Ignore the woeful My Family which goes out before it: the mainstream sitcom is far from dead.

The Old Guys get back on the bus (for free, presumably) for a second series. Written by Peep Show's Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong with The Thick of It writer Simon Blackwell and a cast that includes Clive Swift, Roger Lloyd Pack, Katherine Parkinson and Jane Asher, it oozes class. Series one perhaps didn't quite live up to expectations, but really warmed up over the six episodes. Let's hope that continues with tonight's first episode, as the pair try to win a pub quiz.

Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong are a writing team garlanded with awards for their work on edgy comedies like The Thick of It and Peep Show. They also co-wrote the film Four Lions, Chris Morris's black comedy about suicide bombers. It might seem a far cry from Four Lions to two old codgers, but Bain and Armstrong's likeable sitcom about an ageing pair of ill-matched blokes has the same vein of recognisable absurdity running through it as all their best stuff. As we rejoin Roy (Clive Swift) and Tom (Roger Lloyd Pack), in an episode written by Simon Blackwell, they are eating olives and rice cakes for breakfast while arguing about whose turn it is to do the shopping. The fact that male hopelessness in everything from shopping to romance remains as much a problem in age as in youth is a joke the series plays off well. The pair are still clumsily besotted with their neighbour Sally (Jane Asher) and concerned that she has a new boyfriend ("She keeps going out with men who aren't even remotely us," moans Tom). But now there's a new distraction - a stylish librarian, Barbara, played by Cherie Lunghi.

It may be Pensioners Behaving Badly, but I found the first series of this comedy from the writers behind Peep Show (predominantly Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong, with this first episode written by Simon Blackwell) more enjoyable than the concept would indicate. Roger Lloyd Pack and Clive Swift bicker about everything, not least their mutual attraction to neighbour Sally (Jane Asher).

Iannucci on Sweariest Oscar-Nominated Script Ever

Movieline's first stop on the Oscar-reaction rounds is Armando Iannucci, the In the Loop director whose caustic political satire today earned an Adapted Screenplay nomination for him and his co-writers Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell and Tony Roche. However, more than just being rewarded for the innovation of its characters and story - which focuses on how one press-office zealot engineers a multinational war effort - the Academy may very well have nominated Iannucci and Co. for their exhaustive efforts in developing Loop's stirring new lexicon of profanity. Their side-splitting effort is the only comedy recognized in its respective category - no doubt an underdog against the likes of Up in the Air and Precious, but one that will be happy just to be in the Kodak Theater March 7.

Iannucci spoke with us this afternoon about his reaction to being nominated, Loop's improv factor, and taking Oscar to the outer limits of screen vulgarity.

Coming from the comedy genius minds of Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong (Peep Show) and Simon Blackwell (The Thick Of It), we were hoping for Peep Show with a Bus Pass and Arthritis. And we almost got it. But the tone was wrong (nowhere near dark enough or real enough) and, instead of being fresh and funny, it was just another humdrum BBC1 sitcom.