Tony Pitts

The hit-and-miss nature of this series of short films is epitomised by tonight's double bill. First up is Johnny Vegas and Tony Pitts's tale of the begrudging Rupert (Vegas), who takes over his late father's tattoo business. He has to contend with the feelings of his dad's girlfriend, tattooist Fiona (Josie Lawrence), and a visit from a debt-collector, the cross-dressing Spinks (Paul Kaye). It's grimly amusing. Less successful is Tom Palmer and Tom Stourton's Fergus and Crispin, which follows two hapless posh-boy entrepreneurs as they try to come up with ideas to make money.

Tony Pitts and Kevin Eldon's elliptical comedy, about a group of "sheddists" who have set up a kind of shed shanty town on a beach, has had a couple of major cast changes since its acclaimed first series. For a start, Eldon's other work commitments precluded him from writing and acting, but Pitts has taken up the writing slack and Stephen Mangan has ably filled the role of Jimmy.

Suranne Jones also found herself too busy to recommit to the role of Diane, but Rosina Carbone is a great replacement. The absurdist humour is still top-notch and well complemented by lyrical narration from Maxine Peake.

Special mention must go to Emma Fryer, whose deranged turn as Deborah, the Gypsy who breaks into song at the drop of a hat is a hoot.

If you think of radio in colour this comedy comes in shades of sepia and charcoal with the occasional bright patch of green. It's also pretty addictive, a floaty tale of people looking for new starts, picking themselves up from failed ones, seeking change and consolation. The writer is Tony Pitts, the cast is superb (it includes Stephen Mangan and Ronnie Ancona), the narrator is Maxine Peake and this is a second series. If you're listening in bed be careful not to drop off as it will slot neatly into a dream.

We're half way through Tony Pitts's blackly comic series, about a strange seaside place where odd people live. At three in the morning someone is screaming. It's the kind of thing that happens in Shedtown down by the bay, where dogs arrive as parcels in the post. It's a bit like Under Milk Wood with touches of Father Ted. And it's curiously addictive, the vivid, dreamlike script given life by a marvellous cast, including Suranne Jones, Ronni Ancona and Johnny Vegas as Colin (a thoughtful melancholic). Tonight: a puppet show about 9/11.

The Gemma Factor is a new sitcom about an aspiring actress/model/presenter whose irrepressible optimism remains undiminished despite the combined drawbacks of her having no discernible talents whatsoever, living in a small Yorkshire village where the nearest bright lights are Halifax, and signing with an agent who has a criminal conviction for sex trafficking.

Given its showbusiness theme, The Gemma Factor automatically loses points for its total absence of any verbal or visual references to The Stage newspaper. Hopefully this appalling omission will be rectified in future episodes.

Apart from that, The Gemma Factor was great - funny, fresh and charming. The last of these attributes is almost impossible to pull off, so congratulations to all involved.

What makes The Gemma Factor's achievements all the more remarkable is how perilously close it skates to the potentially appalling. If the show's comedy calibrations were just a few degrees out Gemma's personality would be irritating and imbecilic rather than sweet and naive, with her friends and family coming over as clumsy cliches, not cuddly and colourful. As it is I was totally seduced, even without the picture postcard shots of West Yorkshire at its sunniest and greenest.

Some of the gags do strain to be funny, and the simpleton policeman is a caricature too many, but otherwise Tony Pitts' script is spot-on. And in Anna Gilthorpe the show has found an authentic star to play the delusional wannabe of the title.

A new BBC3 sitcom set the beautiful scenery of West Yorkshire, but with the sort of scatological and sexual references that are seemingly compulsory for a BBC3 comedy commission these days. The odd combination does make this seem like some form of Two Pints of Summer Wine, but writer Tony Pitts (who also appears as a cafe owner with OCD) has crafted a fluffy view of Gemma (Anna Gilthorpe), a girl whose desperation to become famous leads her to make some bad career choices, including hooking up with a crooked agent (Angus Barnett).

Gilthorpe is charming as the ditzy wannabe and manages to make the cast of extreme caricatures around her more tolerable. Standing out in the cast, though, are Gwyneth Powell (aka Grange Hill's legendary Mrs McCluskey) as Gemma's Nan and Emma Kearney as Janet, Kenny's scheming wife/assistant.