Todd Carty

Charlie Brooker's spoof of overwrought murder dramas returns for another two-part saga. Jack Cloth (John Hannah) is off the force, sitting in his car with a whisky optic installed on the dashboard. When actor turned policeman Todd Carty (Todd Carty) is shot up in a robbery, however, Cloth returns to help his old colleague and flirting partner, Anne Oldman (Suranne Jones), catch the criminal bigwig responsible.

The show was borne of a desire to slay all the tropes of British detective shows, but the genre in-jokes - there's a line about characters who talk facing away from the screen having their dialogue dubbed in later to fix plot holes - don't provide as many big laughs as the silly visual gags and the shameless smut. Perhaps this should be a different kind of comedy altogether.

Another two-parter for Charlie Brooker's spoof crime procedural; this second run displays similar strengths and weaknesses to the first. A Touch of Cloth is clearly in thrall to the Police Squad! and Airplane! school of comedy - not necessarily a problem in itself, but gag density has to be matched by gag quality otherwise things can become a touch wearing. The endless self-referentiality becomes tiresome too - do we really need a character moaning; 'I don't have time for a subplot now'?

On the plus side, Brooker's endless familiarity with TV's past occasionally leads him to strike gold: the funeral of Todd Carty, which features Pete Beale from EastEnders and Grange Hill alumni Roland Browning and Mrs McLusky, is sure to tickle viewers of a certain age. But ultimately - and oddly, given that he remains such a funny writer on the page - it feels like Brooker might be best suited to the darker, more serious end of TV drama. Black Mirror certainly hasn't been without the odd laugh, but it's usually humour of the bleakest kind. More of that please.

Not many shows this year, if any, were as hilarious as Charlie Brooker's Sky1 comedy. A Touch of Cloth maintained its alarmingly high rate of jokes throughout the entire two hours, delightfully mocking the clichés of crime procedurals - littering the show with sight gags (the absolutely spot-on opening titles), silly wordplay ("Bi, Jack." "Don't leave!") and one-liners ("Sarge says to go there during the ad break").

It's a genius idea that could have backfired terribly if the execution was lacking. Fortunately, that wasn't the case, and we couldn't stop laughing. The stars - including leads John Hannah and Suranne Jones - brilliantly deadpan the whole script, while Todd Carty's unexpected and inexplicable appearance was the icing on an entertaining cake.

It's the end-of-series compilation, the episode where, because the WILTY? folk record more material than they can carve into each show, they're left with a variety of awkward offcuts. Often these are the marginally-less-believable attempts by panellists to persuade us of outlandish incidents, lies so daft their tellers can barely keep straight faces - but not always.

Alexander Armstrong gets a round of applause just for reading out his card, featuring as it does the claim that in one weekend he had a curry with Andy Murray, went bowling with JK Rowling and attended an odd party with Todd Carty.

Spamalot star Todd Carty looking on the bright side

Former EastEnders and Dancing On Ice star Todd Carty is tackling his first major musical role.