That Mitchell And Webb Look

Tucked in between Thursday night's line-up of swords, smut and sorcery in Krod Mandoon and the bizarre brilliance of Psychoville, David Mitchell and Robert Webb's clever, crafted sketches act as a bit of a palate cleanser - a brief return to a sane world we can vaguely recognise.

The sketches where they painstakingly point out the basic idiocy of other TV shows always hit the mark and Webb's shouty, swearing TV chef who says "balls" a lot is a highlight.

So is Mitchell as a soothsayer in ancient Pompeii. Midway through series three, their policy of spreading their comedy net far and wide means their material is still as fresh as ever - unlike many sketch shows that rely on trotting out the same characters and catchphrases week after week for easy laughs.

That said, their running parody of a 70s sitcom - Get Me Hennimore! is totally inspired silliness.

This week's targets for David Mitchell and Robert Webb's satire include a shouting TV chef and homeopathy - both almost too easy to make fun of, you might think, but they find clever new ways. Even if the idea of a Casualty-style drama set in homeopathic A & E department doesn't make you laugh ("His chakras are fading! We're gonna need more crystals!"), the doctors' after-work trip to the pub should. Mitchell is on romping form, as good playing a soothsayer in Pompeii or a man who doesn't understand what an X on the end of an email means. There are dud moments - a swinger sketch doesn't even nearly work - but four weeks in, their stock of sharp ideas doesn't look like running out.

TV Review: That Mitchell and Webb Look

This is a show that is obviously not without merit, but I still feel hung up about how I just don't like them in this particular guise.

That Mitchell And Webb Look 3.3 Review

The worst episode so far, sadly. Mid-series episodes don't tend to be the strongest in sketch shows, and episode 3 was definitely lacking the big laughs and intelligent ideas M&W are capable of. However, the new sports drink Glucozade Port (alcoholic isotonic); and a Bond spoof where Agent Suave visits a casino of parlour games were highlights.

Tonight's joyous patchwork of silliness includes a righteous meat-eater striking a blow against the vegetarians, a brief moment of clarity for Sir Digby Chicken Caesar's sidekick Ginger, and a glorious Bond parody set in a very English casino. Webb's dancing prowess even gets a brief outing in an Austen parody. There seem to be no limits to the scope of subjects M&W tackle - unlike Little Britain, their targets are never predictable; it's just an ever-changing buffet of the unexpected. This is properly crafted funniness for people who like their jokes to contain words and ideas. Superb.

Series three continues in its now characteristically variable form, but what's attractive about That Mitchell and Webb Look is that it never seems to take itself too seriously. The evidence: a sketch tonight mocking the variability of Mitchell and Webb sketches.

Very much a game of two halves this week. In the plus column: a cheeky vegetarian backlash, the tragically oblivious weatherman and a disco-dancing Mr Darcy. But the ace in the pack is a sublime demolition of spy-in-a-casino film cliches, which pits a Bond clone against a Blofeld type in a game not of roulette or poker, but of guess the weight of the cake. Robert Webb seems to have been made up to look like Damian Lewis, and David Mitchell like Lucius Malfoy from the Harry Potter films, but that just adds to the surreal fun. The show tails off rather meekly with a mixture of head-in-hands cringe and wasted-effort caper (no, not Sir Digby Chicken-Caesar again!). But the memory of the croupier raking mounds of fruitcake across the gaming table is hard to shake.

What is That Mitchell and Webb Look? I suspect it is the look of incredulity that passed over my face when I heard they'd got another series. Extremely clever and well performed by two very personable comics, it could still be a lot funnier.

In That Mitchell and Webb Look (BBC2) David and Robert discuss the hit-and-miss nature of all sketch shows, including theirs. "If we didn't perversely include about 50% deliberately unamusing material, people would have to think of something else to say, wouldn't they," says David.

"Like we're too self-referential," says Robert.

"Ah, clever."

"And people call us smug," Robert adds, smugly.

Ah, doubly clever, and smug, and knowing. Quite funny, too. It is the only funny sketch of the lot - and there are 12 of them, I reckon, if you count the mini-movie spoofs as one. So when you say about 50%, David, what you really mean is about 92%.

If you lasted through to the end of Krod Mandoon you would have reached That Mitchell and Webb Look, which, three series in, is doing something rare among sketch shows: improving. The first two series were patchy - I might have said "hit-and-miss" but last night's episode featured a sketch lampooning reviewers who say that. Well, anyway: its hit-rate's up. The main characteristic of the show's humour is nerdish pedantry. If something improbable happens in a sketch, the characters won't follow comic convention and go with the flow; instead, they'll draw attention to it.

In one sketch, a man, played by David Mitchell, was having visions of the television chef Gary Rhodes - played by Robert Webb with a foot-high quiff. "Is that what Gary Rhodes looks like?" said Mitchell's character uncertainly. "No," beamed the vision, "but this is the best version of me that your imagination could piece together."

Another thing they do well: the good old-fashioned "subverting expectations" gag. One sketch was about a pair of sleazy snooker pundits reflecting on their time in the game.

"It's been me life," began one. "I've been obsessed with it, me whole life."

Pause. "That and snooker..."