Tim Key

Individually, Tom Basden, Stefan Golaszewski, Tim Key and Lloyd Woolf have caused quite a stir on the live comedy circuit, and their shared love of deadpan, absurd and irreverent humour shines out in this inventive, enjoyable and subtle sketch show. Particularly pertinent highlights include a middle-class game of Russian roulette where adhering to the rules is paramount, and a job seeker whose only aim is to become Mick Hucknall's PA.

Tom Basden, Stefan Golaszewski, Tim Key and Lloyd Woolf's delightful sketch show returns to Radio 4 for a second series.

Theirs is a performance that likes to keep it real - instead of larger-than-life characters, they bring out the comedy in the everyday. Not that their screations are average Joes: in one sketch Mr Sneeze comes to blows with the other Mr Men, while in another, Harrison Ford desperately kowtows to a casting director.

It's about left-field observations rather than catchphrases, and makes for a refreshing, rib-tickling change.

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One of the newer comedy collectives consists of core members Mark Watson, Alex Horne and Tim Key. The three friends have been working together on projects since 2001 and last year premiered the Fringe's first interactive quiz show.

Mark Watson is not a comedian who is short of ambition. In 2006 he did a stand-up show in which he wrote a novel with his audience. Then last year came his methodical deconstruction of the Seven Deadly Sins. His new series picks up where he left off, only with the moral lever now switched to the virtues. This week that makes for a blissfully madcap journey around the concept of courage. Extremely silly songs about being brave (from poet Tim Key) complete the picture, my favourite of which is 'ignore peer pressure - unless you're a structural engineer who is building a pier, in which case don't put lives at risk.'

We're circling Buddha of Suburbia territory with this new sitcom by Suk Pannu, about Bharat, a suburban guru (Vincent Ebrahim), his disciple Henry (Tim Key) and Mrs Sidhu (Shelley King), his termagant receptionist. Bharat's advice is much sought after but what he advises (times of weddings etc) may depend on what's on TV that afternoon. Yet despite his devotion to Quincy, he wants the younger generation to take him seriously.

The most promising new sitcom came from Suk Pannu with The Spiritual Centre because it had a genuine quirkiness, allied with performances which didn't make me grit my teeth, which is always a good start. Most of the best sitcoms of the seventies, the undisputed golden age of the genre, exploited genuine personality flaws in their characters, rather than hyping everything up to fairground level. Here, Pannu has given us Bharat, a self-declared guru of the western suburbs of London, who is expansive on the failings of others while blind to his own faults. Played by the very likeable Vincent Ebrahim, he carelessly exploits the servant classes (his disciple played by Tim Key) and becomes very tetchy if interrupted during the afternoon repeats of old American detective shows.

Radio 4 is funny (peculiar) because it trumpets its 6.30pm comedy slot, yet most of its funny (ha-ha) finds are elsewhere. For instance, All Bar Luke, scheduled at 11.15pm, is a sweet-natured little gem.

On Wednesday, Luke, played by writer Tim Key, was at a stag party, stone-cold sober. He was designated driver. This, you suspect, will prove to be a regular occurrence. You only hear Luke's voice, no one else's responses, and the joy of the programme is in the gradual realisation of the entire, awful situation. I don't want to spoil it for you, but poor Luke was subjected to a private lap dance. He offered the obliging lady a £10 book token. I don't know if you accept them ... But it's Borders, he explained. So you can get CDs too, or ... I don't know if you can get coffees with it .... You felt for him, you really did.

A kind of storytelling goes on at the bar and this was exploited with the kind of insight that makes you squirm, by former Perrier nominee Tim Key, in All Bar Luke, developed from his 2004 Edinburgh show.

His clever conceit was to make Luke's the only voice in a whirl of boozing and brawling, although you could have sworn you heard countless others. Key's theme was the power games and pathos of young males out drinking. The comedy was surprisingly poignant.