Lead Balloon

Rick Spleen is exactly the kind of comedian who would jockey for a good position at an Amnesty gig, the good cause foremost in his mind being the promotion of his own career. And then, of course, it would all go horribly wrong, since the essential dynamic of Lead Balloon, back for a fourth series, is that Rick should end up horribly humiliated by his own incontinent ambition. Or - as in last night's episode - by an incontinent pig, which anointed Rick with liquid manure while he was in the middle of trying to impress a Sunday Times journalist who'd turned up to write an "At Home With" feature.

Cruelly, the subject wasn't Rick at all but his long-suffering wife, Mel, who didn't really want to say yes in the first place but had been talked round by Rick. "It's probably not a bad time for me to put myself back in the public eye," he explained to his writing partner, Marty. "Any year now would be fine," replied Marty, whose drily unimpressed comments are an enjoyable grace note in the scripts. Planning to set-dress his life a little, Rick borrowed a Vietnamese pot-bellied pig. "I honestly think it's the kind of thing a couple like us would have," he told Mel. "It's not," she replied testily, "because otherwise we'd have one." The pig turned in a fine performance. As did everybody else, actually, in a comedy that has a lot of small supporting roles but no negligible ones.

Review: Lead Balloon, Tuesday 10pm, BBC Two

While brand new must-see sitcoms seem to be a little thin on the ground on terrestrial TV, several popular series are quietly plodding along in the background - and gradually becoming very welcome small-screen mainstays in the process. One such example is Jack Dee's Lead Balloon, which has just entered its fourth series on BBC Two.

Review: Lead Balloon, BBC Two

It's been more than two and a half years since the third series of Jack Dee's comedy about a comedian. Everyone in Rick Spleen's world looks a little bit older, a mite more pinched and drawn, as if proximity to the man about the house is draining the blood out of its occupants. Time has not at all been kind to Rick himself (but then when was it ever?). His temples are awash with grey, his skin is sallow with failure, and his self-important delusions seem ever more steeped in bitterness and malignity. I for one have missed him dreadfully.

Jack Dee was born with a scowl. Which is pretty much all you need to know about Lead Balloon (BBC2), the sitcom in which Dee does his middle-aged moany thing, although he's pretending to be a failed comic called Rick Spleen.

It's an act that's so familiar by now that all returns have diminished, though Lead Balloon does give the excellent Raquel Cassidy the chance to air her full range of withering scorn. Aside from her, Lead Balloon just goes down like the proverbial.

Jack Dee's Rick Spleen is back for another series of suburban angst and tonight he's trying to write his first novel.

He's also desperately trying to make his family seem more interesting than they really are when a magazine comes to interview his partner Mel (Raquel Cassidy) for an "at home with...".

The most interesting thing about Mel and Rick is that they're still together despite having nothing in common.

Is there some mind-blowing sexual chemistry going on behind closed doors that we don't know about?

If so, I think we should be told. But what they need, Rick decides, is some exotic kind of pet - like a pig.

Like Rick's novel, the plot is a little short on inspiration, but the performances, especially from Antonia Campbell-Hughes and Rasmus Hardiker - as his teenage daughter Sam and boyfriend Ben - and Anna Crilly, as Magda, keep things ticking over.

Washed-up comic Rick Spleen returns to our screens tonight, as vain and self-deluding as ever. Spleen is a wonderful portrait of a very modern sort of failure, a man drinking the dregs in the cup of fame, and scowling at the aftertaste (if there's one expression we know Jack Dee can nail, it's the scowl). Rick leads a comfortable life, but his never very stellar career has stalled, leaving him with an inflated idea of his own status, as highlighted in a lovely scene early in this episode, when a newspaper wants to interview his wife Mel for an "at home" profile and Rick assumes they're interested in him, too. The moment where Mel (the excellent Raquel Cassidy) registers Rick's mistake but lets him down gently, is beautifully played - the kind of cruel but well-observed moment the series loves. Rick's tireless efforts to pose as something he isn't are always a blend of funny and excruciating - even when we can see the plot consequences coming a mile off. And the supporting cast are brilliant, from Rick's teenage daughter and her wonderfully dozy boyfriend to the self-important neighbour, who tonight has cause to be alarmed.

Jack Dee's sitcom returns for a fourth season. Not much has changed, and that's not a bad thing. This is a show that follows an effective routine, in which Dee's Rick gets some crazy notion into his head then parades it in front of his family, friends and neighbours as they bring him slowly back down to earth. This week, wife Mel is picked as the subject of a Sunday supplement piece and Rick tries to hijack it for some press for himself. It's up to his sarcastic writing partner, stoner daughter, depressed maid etc to deflate his ego.

Five minutes with Sean Power - Lead Balloon IV

Tellyspotting caught up with the great Sean Power, Rick's American co-writer and part-time conspirator who, quietly, longs to drive Rick crazy. Besides his role as Marty, Power is a well-known playwright and stage director with an extensive career in the theatre.

Of all the people better at being Larry David than Larry David, Jack Dee is doing it so well that short of George Costanza coming back he's probably going to win the prize. What he does so well is that - despite the fact that Rick Spleen is vain, ridiculous and only out for himself, whereas Larry is just a bit silly, a bit selfish but well-meaning - you still empathise more with Rick than Larry.

Tonight, An 'At Home With...' feature with The Sunday Times brings out the worst in Rick Spleen as even though the feature is clearly all about his wife, he begins pathetic attempts to give himself an image makeover, leading to a pair of glasses, a novel and Magda saying: "Oh, there is pig in the kitchen." Hurrah.

TV review: Lead Balloon

What's the funniest thing about the return of Rick Spleen? That would be the pig.