Sophie Thompson

Here's a good comedy to listen to as you peel those hard neeps for your Burns Night supper. It's about young English lawyer Nicola (Sophie Thompson) whose work takes her to a Burns Night dinner in London, a corporate one. The water of life (aka whisky) flows and she's a bit put out by the general goings on. But then, as the evening continues, she starts to comprehend why the poetry of Robert Burns spoke to many a woman in its time, and still reaches hearts today. Nimbly dramatised by Liz Lochhead from a story by Helen Simpson.

The setting - a small-scale circus - is colourful and original. The characters are fun. The cast, which includes Tony Robinson, Sophie Thompson, Ruth Madoc and John Thomson, is comprised of rock solid comedy pros who deliver the goods. It contains gently romantic elements which are rather sweet...

Truth be told though, I didn't find it funny. With one or two exceptions, the gags are limp and lumbered with punchlines Nostradamus probably saw coming. Moreover, it has as its star Amanda Holden, who totally fails to deliver any kind of performance through the mask that is her face.

Do we really have to speak about Big Top? OK. Big Top is a sitcom about a failing circus, inexplicably starring the wooden, joke-killing Amanda Holden as the scatty, though apparently strong-willed, owner. There's a trapeze artist madly in love with her, Ruth Madoc as a dog-handler, and other rather good actors (Sophie Thompson, John Thomson) flailing with a lame script. Patrick Baladi as a health and safety advisor was ejected at the end of episode one after failing to persuade Holden of the merits of a life of mortgage trackers and convention. Lucky him. Poor us.

Suddenly it's like the 1970s all over again, at least in TV sitcom land. If it's not Miranda gurning to camera and tripping over her giant feet, then it's Amanda Holden in fishnet tights and John Thomson shoving ferrets down his trousers. Which, sadly, is not a scene from a retro fetish club night but what passes for comedy on the fantastically rubbish Big Top.

The Office must have seemed another lifetime to Patrick Baladi when he found himself stranded amid the spit and sawdust as a health and safety officer in a circus sitcom so old-school it made Last Of The Summer Wine look raw and edgy. Assigned to the unenviable task of romancing Holden's dull ring mistress - think school ma'am on a hen night - Baladi was confronted by a box of dog poo. No, seriously, that was the punch line of the best joke of the night.

It was the once mighty Gladys of Hi-de-hi (aka Ruth Madoc) who was proffering the said turd, which made you feel for the talent being frittered away all round the ring. Sophie Thompson is a talented comic actress, but she has an unhappy knack of ending up in total turkeys and she's picked another one here as Thomson's clueless co-clown.

It was as though The League of Gentlemen had never happened. You can squeeze laughs out of clowns without resorting to abusing furry animals - the consistently excellent Modern Family had a great running gag about coulrophobia last week - but Big Top isn't anywhere near that league. The title isn't even a joke: it might have worked if Jordan was playing the lead but as it is it's just plain lazy. Another tent-peg in the coffin of the British sitcom (it's got so bad, I've even started laughing at Miranda. But that's probably the medication).

Reports of the death of the British sitcom have been greatly exaggerated. With Last of the Summer Wine making its 31st series, My Family its 11th and even Reggie Perrin recommissioned, somebody's watching. And they're the same viewers likely to warm to this new family-friendly sitcom set in a two-bit provincial circus.

It stars Amanda Holden as ringmaster Lizzie, who struggles to control a gaggle of fading acts, including a wacky ageing performer (Hi-De-Hi!'s Ruth Madoc) and a pair of hopeless clowns (John Thomson and Sophie Thompson). The script by relative newcomer Daniel Peak features dog-napping plots and ferrets-down-trousers gags rather than the observational humour that's so hip these days, but it draws upon the rich tradition of earlier comedies - from Dad's Army to Steptoe and Son - in which the humour often came from characters who are compelled by their situation to do peculiar, funny things. Spirited performances by a decent cast go some way toward making up for the dated set-up. Baldrick himself, Blackadder's Tony Robinson, turns up as the circus's wisecracking accounts man, and Holden propels the action (she was, after all, a perky comic actress in Kiss Me Kate and The Grimleys before Britain's Got Talent and Botox took over). Launching any new sitcom is a bit of a highwire act, but audiences may roll up to this one.

With Britney Spears and Take That going down the circus route for their recent albums, suddenly the big top's back in vogue. But even if it didn't feature Ruth Madoc as one half of a dog act (the other half being a West Highland terrier called Dave) the ghost of Hi-de-Hi! hovers over this show.

Like holiday camps, a circus - where this is set - is like a sheltered environment where all kinds of eccentrics can live in safety, at arms' length from the outside world. The genial folk at Maestros appear to have been preserved in aspic from some time in the 60s and their biggest star seems to be Amanda Holden in a ringmaster's outfit.

Also on the bill are Tony Robinson as a grumpy caretaker named Erasmus, leotard-wearing Boyco, (Bruce MacKinnon) and John Thomson and Sophie Thompson (not related) as a pair of clowns, Jeff and Helen.

The gentle comedy tonight revolves around some ferrets down a clown's trousers and a visit from a health and safety officer - who's played by a seriously bemused-looking Patrick Baladi.

Dr Martin Ellingham (Martin Clunes) welcomes in a tide of patients for his last day of surgery in Portwenn, in the final episode of this series of the comedy drama about a GP in a sleepy Cornish village. Before his move back to London, Martin dispatches a raft of last-minute medical cases, even tending to one of his removal men. Tasha (Sophie Thompson), too, is suffering a dizzy spell, and it remains to be seen whether Martin can make his departure without Louisa (Caroline Catz), pregnant, requiring his attentions.

Shirley Henderson stars in this two-part comedy drama about a woman keen to send her daughter to a good school. None of us want to send our kids to a disaster prone comp such as Waterloo Road, but would you consider dressing up as your sprog and taking the 11-plus in order to get them into a posher school? That's one of the zany plots concocted by the pushy parents in this far-fetched two-part comedy drama, which stars Harry Potter ghost Shirley Henderson and Phil Mitchell's mad missus Sophie Thompson. Nutty, indeed.