Sophie Colquhoun

Toast's love life is in the doldrums. Luckily, Ed's girlfriend, Penvelope, has a friend, Clancy Moped (Sophie Colquhoun), "a weather girl off the television" who sports a Pussy Riot T-shirt. All goes well until Toast and Ed are asked to judge the International Beauty Contest for Women, a secretive event in the age of feminism. Fitfully amusing - especially the bits tonight with Peter Davison - but three series in, it's difficult to shake the idea that Toast's peculiarly heightened world has become too self-contained and self-referential.

Radio Times review

Daily life chez Lord Emsworth is always a little irregular but when neighbour Colonel Fanshawe (James Fleet) and his lovely daughter Valerie (Sophie Colquhoun) visit, it's even weirder than usual.

The indecipherable Scottish head gardener is blasting away at some pesky rabbits, Beach is falling asleep when he's not being overly familiar to his employers and Freddie's trying to teach Mugsy the pug how to juggle.

At times the jokes veer into Carry On territory: "He's indicated his intention to retire on the grounds of black tongue fever contracted up the Yangtze" and "He's frightened of dogs because he was badly bitten in the Khyber," should give you the idea.

Plebs focuses on three no-hopers in the form of office boys Marcus (Tom Rosenthal) and Stylax (Joel Fry) and their slave Grumio (Ryan Sampson). Marcus is a bit of a dreamer and when an attractive new neighbour Cynthia (Sophie Colquhoun) enters his life he falls head over heels in love. The only problem is that Stylax wants them both to go to an orgy and that means trying to convince Cynthia to come with them.

Cue a lot of comic misunderstanding, awkward silences and a very kinky cage game. I believe Plebs was conceived when someone said 'why don't we try and make an Ancient Rome version of The Inbetweeners.' Plebs is filled with the crude humour and obvious jokes that you would expect from an ITV2 sitcom. As much as I like Tom Rosenthal he has been saddled with playing 'the awkward one' which means he has to make a lot of sad faces when Cynthia goes off with another man. Meanwhile Joel Fry, who is so great in Trollied, is the 'horny one' and is always trying to get off with someone while avoiding the advances of his boss (Doon Mackichan). In fact the best performance comes from Ryan Sampson as the bewildered Northern slave Grumio who is forced to route through the bins to find food for his two masters.

While Plebs isn't awful it still felt like a sitcom that was developed with a key demographic in mind rather than just simply created by a talented scriptwriter. In fact, while the state of British drama seems to be very healthy indeed, I don't think there's been one really good UK sitcom since the start of the year.

More Horrible Histories than Up Pompeii!, this tunic-and-sandals sitcom pitches 21st-century sensibilities into the streets of Ancient Rome for a forum full of fun with ordinary blokes Marcus and Stylax, a pair serviced by grumbling slave Grumio. In the double-episode opener, Tom Rosenthal's Marcus - think The Inbetweeners' Will - is throwing himself at glamorous new neighbour Cynthia (Sophie Colquhoun), while Ryan Sampson's Grumio (Baldrick, by any other name) is in a grump over dog poo. Add in Doon Mackichan as whip-cracking boss Flavia, whose idea of disciplining her workforce is inviting herself along to an orgy, and it's a saucy dollop of fun.