Back

Back, which began on C4, can be read in a few ways. Back as in, David Mitchell and Robert Webb are back, together, hurrah: the Peep Show guys reunited, and playing quasi simulacra (the sober, moral but sarky one, and the smiley shallow one). Back - as in Stephen's dad, a pub landlord and inveterate foster father, has died, and the mourners suddenly include Andrew (Webb), who was fostered for about 10 minutes back in the lost 80s, and they will replay their memories of those days with wildly differing degrees of enthusiasm and accuracy. Back - as in, you can never really go there.

It's a triumph, in that writer Simon Blackwell looks to be embarking on a grown-up exploration of memory that manages to be in parts explosively funny, too. Mitchell's character (as ever) reveals himself as too clever to pull off real pathos: Webb's (as ever) as too misguided to garner real dislike. Painfully sharp but also oddly touching, if you let it.

Is Back really the next Peep Show? In short, Yes!

It was like eating a vast portion of potato chips. Or not.

Back review

Back doesn't have the most straightforward of premises; it takes a bit of setting up. But that's done well, and it's worth the effort, because once you're on top of things, it's an interesting place to be.

Back, review: the chemistry's still there

Back is far less claustrophobic and far more of an ensemble piece than Peep Show, though some of the acting in the first episode felt a bit too broad.

Back, episode one - Mitchell and Webb triumph

"Mum's gone for a wicker coffin. Reminds me of the baskets we used to serve pub food in. Dad's like a giant scampi." Pitch-black comedy Back (Channel 4) began with a death in the family and immediately found the funny side.

David Mitchell and Robert Webb's Back review

If David Mitchell and Robert Webb are a pair haunted by the success of their first sitcom Peep Show then they've put the ghosts to work in their second one.

Back: One of the best new shows of the autumn

What's Andrew up to? Is he just a chancer or is he much worse than that? Waiting to find out adds an intriguing, almost psychological-thriller element to what already looks like being one of the best new shows of the autumn.

Review: Back

It's a set-up perfectly designed to milk David Mitchell's speciality - the outraged loser - to the max and it's the scenes where Stephen is, at one point almost literally, swimming in the piss-poor job he's made of his life that give Back its comic class.

Back is laugh-out-loud funny - review

David Mitchell and Robert Webb are literally Back with a new dark comedy on Channel 4.

TV review: Back

David Mitchell and Robert Webb reunite for a new sitcom and, despite the echoes of Peep Show, it looks set to be a pin-sharp comic delight.