Black Books

There was a bad moment in the first episode of this series when it seemed as if Black Books might have lost its footing. It was loud and slapstick and too crude to be funny. But now it is right back on form, and this is one of the funniest episodes yet. Manny (Bill Bailey) places a bet on the Grand National, which turns Bernard (Dylan Moran) into a chronic gambler. Once again, it is the inmates against the world. For all that they torment each other, their pooled inadequacies act as a bulwark against customers, debt collectors - and just about everyone else.

After last week's episode, which worked hard for its laughter, tonight's is a far more relaxed and subtle affair. Bernard (Dylan Moran) and Manny (Bill Bailey) decide to write a children's book. Bernard's first attempt at entertaining four to six-year-olds consists of a 1,300-page saga about the relationship between an academic who survived the Stalinist purges and a daughter whose long and bitter marriage is collapsing. "You should never talk down to children," he says. The episode plays to one of the great strengths of the series - the antagonistic co-dependence that binds the main characters together. It is a wonderful return to form.

Little shop of horrors

There's no hugging or learning in Black Books. As the show returns for a new series on Channel 4, James Rampton meets the stars of a decidedly ill-natured comedy.

I wonder if, by any chance, they have got the casting the wrong way round. Bill Bailey, who is very good indeed, is potentially the more terrifying of the two, while Dylan Moran can do endearing lying down. God knows where the girl-next-door is supposed to fit in. Good sitcoms are usually about lifers, shackled together by celibacy, poverty, family, necessity, history, somethingy. What chain gang are these three in?

Funny. strange

Irish comedian Dylan Moran has already proved he can act in sitcoms. But now he's teamed up with Graham 'Father Ted' Linehan to write one. They both talked to Maxton Walker about the surreal result, Black Books.

Finally, an order: watch Black Books, because it's funny. Sitting alone in a room, watching a blurry nth-generation copy of this week's opening episode on tape, I was shocked to hear myself laughing out loud twice within the first five minutes.