Tom Basden

Laughter, a doctor once said, is the best medicine. This week's opening episodes of two new sitcoms should only be prescribed by a Crippen-like physician, such was the dearth of merriment among them.

In its defence, The Wrong Mans is essentially more comedy-drama than straight sitcom. It's saved from being yet another James Corden vanity project (I'm not a fan of his, let's get that out of the way) by being co-written by and co-starring Mathew Baynton, who appeared in Gavin & Stacey but is also part of the marvellous Horrible Histories cast.

Baynton's character Sam is a meek council worker who witnesses a car crash, and after answering a mobile phone at the scene he's plunged into a world of intrigue and kidnapping. Rather than go to the police with any evidence he's got, he's persuaded by office mailman friend Phil (Corden) to keep in touch with the kidnappers and rescue the mystery lady in trouble.

And this turn of events is the main problem - Sam would have gone to the police, and would have ignored any stupid 'advice' from his frankly stupid friend. The opener didn't know if it wanted to play it for laughs (there was some slapstick involving a hospital bed and an anaesthetic) or veer off into crime thriller territory (the episode ended with the pair of them blindfolded and bundled into a van themselves).

The programme therefore fell between the two, and was neither funny or tense enough. Having said that, pilots can be tough so it warrants a second look, mainly because of a strong performance from Baynton and a decent supporting cast including Tom Basden and Sarah Solemani.

James Corden and Mathew Baynton write and star in this new sitcom as Phil and Sam, two friends whose dull existences are complicated by the discovery of a strange mobile phone and an associated gangland hostage situation. These wrong men live in a weird grey twilight with a Belle & Sebastian soundtrack: stylish, but potentially at the expense of much actual comic substance. Corden is on top form with an uber-pathetic variation on his usual shtick, though, while the always brilliant Tom Basden plays the guys' nasty colleague.

Love him or hate him, James Corden undeniably does have a range of talents - actor, writer and co-creator of some very funny comedy (we'll politely forget the car crash of his misguided BBC sketch show with Mathew Horne). And now, dontchaknow, he's come up with another comedy vehicle, The Wrong Mans (****), which had a very accomplished debut last night.

Corden, late of the National Theatre and Broadway, has co-written, with fellow Gavin & Stacey alumnus Mathew Baynton, a comedy thriller in the style of Simon Pegg and Joe Wright's Cornetto trilogy, with appreciative nods (in the title) to Alfred Hitchcock's 1956 thriller and, in camerawork and misfit leads, to Peep Show.

Baynton is nice but weedy Sam, who wakes up one wintry morning with the mother of a hangover, only to find his pushbike has been stolen so he has to walk to work, as a town planning and noise guidance adviser for Berkshire County Council. On his way, he's the only witness to a car crash and he picks up a ringing phone; a man issues threats and in later calls it's clear a woman has been kidnapped.

At work Sam takes postboy Phil (Corden) into his confidence. Phil is beside himself; he's a 31-year-old living at home with his mum and he keeps trying to organise fun days paint-balling or bowling with his colleagues (oblivious to the fact they all think he's a boring knob); for him, this mystery is his very own live-action Grand Theft Auto, and he convinces Sam not to call the police but to try to rescue the woman and become heroes.

The opening episode efficiently essayed the set-up, and there are some promising relationships to be explored in the following five weeks. Sarah Solemani (who was so brilliant in Him & Her) is Sam's boss, but also the girlfriend who recently dumped him because he was too needy, while Tom Basden is the horrible colleague we'd love to be taken down a peg or two.

Corden clearly has pulling power, as those names above suggest, and Dawn French, Nick Moran, Rebecca Front and Dougray Scott will appear in future episodes - although David Harewood, who appeared briefly last night, shot his scenes before his Homeland stardom. The opener had some neat twists and turns and ended on a great cliffhanger. Definitely one to stay with.

Spoofing action-filled, big budget American TV series, The Wrong Mans is both sitcom and thriller. Created by and starring James Corden and Matthew Bayton, as a luckless duo working for Berkshire County Council whose blue-collar lives are turned upside down by a chance phone call. Mistaken identities prompt comic mishap as they are drawn into a murky world of international espionage. The supporting cast includes Dawn French, Sarah Solemani, Rebecca Front, Dougray Scott, Emilia Fox, Nick Moran, Stephen Campbell Moore and Tom Basden - the very Best of British.

I've caught up late with Plebs, Sam Leifer and Tom Basden's comedy about three also-rans in Ancient Rome, which turns out to be a likeable enough affair, though you never entirely feel that they get out of second gear when it comes to the writing.

I did laugh aloud when the lads' landlord indignantly accused them of "Thracism" for wanting to get rid of a Thracian tenant he'd foisted on them, but I think that was partly because the line was delivered by the wonderful Karl Theobald. Also effortlessly funny, even when saying nothing at all, is Ryan Sampson as Grumio the slave. Shades of Baldrick - the dimwit's dimwit.

A funny thing happened on the way to the Colosseum

Plebs is set in Ancient Rome, but the sitcom tells timeless truths about life at the bottom of the pile, says its writer Tom Basden

What have Plebs ever done for ITV?

ITV is set to welcome its first new sitcom in years later this month when Sam Leifer and Tom Basden's Plebs hits ITV2.

On this evidence, it's fair to surmise that comedian Tom Basden has some issues with BP: the writer of this week's episode covers the oil industry with a slick of righteous abuse courtesy of the ill-matched housemates. Kingsley, JP and Howard (the latter still subject to an excellent running gag about Lord of the Rings) have their heads turned by BP at a careers fair and find themselves ineptly competing for an internship. All this brings out the eco-warrior in Vod and the lonely neurotic in Josie, while Oregon clashes with a rival as she attempts to launch a magazine. Rufus Jones, so brilliant in Hunderby, makes an excellent fist of the slippery oil exec as the series treads water a little, but in an effortlessly entertaining manner.

Review: Musical Comedy Awards 2012 Final

The Tom Basden-like Rob Carter was something of an unknown to myself and the majority of the audience inside the Bloomsbury. However that is surely about to change, as he deservedly won the competition.