First of all, I need to say a big "Hello!" to Tom (Roger Lloyd Pack), who you can see reading this column in the opening scenes of tonight's episode. Never let it be said that We Love Telly is open to bribery but any shows wanting to be Pick Of The Day in future... let's just say that you know what you have to do.

That's a principle Tom would certainly agree with because tonight he manages to score himself a smartphone in exchange for his daughter's hand in marriage - and I think we all know who got the best end of the deal there.

It's the last in the current series, which has got sprightlier and more adorable by the week. And Tom's making the most of his chance to spend quality time with Sally (Jane Asher) as they thrash out the details of Amber's wedding to Sally's son, Steve.

Katherine Parkinson makes a welcome return as Amber and as well as a new fiancé, she's also got a new hobby to be rubbish at: gardening. "Weeds, flowers - how are you supposed to know?" she despairs as she's confronted by an incriminating wheelbarrow. "Garden­­ing is just racism for plants!"

Jane Simon, The Mirror, 13th August 2010

The Old Guys Review: The Unfunny Couple

Aside from sporting the worst theme tune to accompany a sitcom in living memory, The Old Guys is a horrid confection of cheap BBC comedy and an ill-conceived, poorly handled premise.

Written by Jamie Steiner. On The Box, 13th August 2010

Katherine Parkinson returns to the series tonight as Tom's hopeless daughter, Amber. She and her boyfriend, Steve, have decided to get engaged, despite having a wonderfully rubbish relationship: she likes to watch Ken Hom's Hot Wok of an evening while he instant messages on the internet. Naturally, Tom isn't about to stand in the way of their non-romance, and for one simple reason: Steve is Sally's son, so the wedding offers Tom plenty of chances to cosy up to the object of his affections as they plot the arrangements together. The trouble is, does that colour his judgement of the whole event? What ensues makes for an enjoyable final episode: look out for Roy's worldly marriage advice to Steve, and Amber's description of yoga: "Basically, it's just breathing for show-offs."

David Butcher, Radio Times, 13th August 2010

The second series of this gentle sitcom about two OAP housemates comes to an end. Amber (Katherine Parkinson) has persuaded her uptight boyfriend Steve to propose. Sally (Jane Asher), the snobby mother of the groom, plans a lavish wedding. Amber's father Tom (Roger Lloyd Pack) panics at the cost and even considers flogging his beloved motorbike. Not so much bad as boring.

Toby Danzic, The Daily Telegraph, 13th August 2010

This week, a hospital farce. Sally has to go in for a knee operation and enlists the help of the ever-competitive Tom and Roy in keeping her spirits up. It leads to far-fetched developments that may remind you dimly of One Foot in the Grave - there are the same dashes of black-edged absurdity, with events culminating in a scene at an undertaker's. Roy gets into a situation where he has to pretend to be Welsh and Tom gets excited about earning himself a place in the medical textbooks. But it's the minor details that really lift things, such as Tom's halloumi habit or Sally's love of Coast.

David Butcher, Radio Times, 6th August 2010

After inauspicious beginnings, this second series of the pleasant, harmless comedy about a couple of old codgers in Beckenham has warmed up. In this fifth episode, Tom (Roger Lloyd Pack) and Roy (Clive Swift) negotiate their only friend Sally's (Jane Asher) stay in hospital, which causes the two men at least as much trouble as it causes her after Tom is waylaid by vanity and Roy by his eagerness to please. Though the jokes are hardly risqué, it moves at pace, and Swift and Lloyd Pack have a snappy camaraderie.

Ed Cumming, The Daily Telegraph, 6th August 2010

Roy and Tom's wildest dreams actually come true tonight when Sally (Jane Asher) temporarily moves into their house. She's having her bathroom repaired and how can they refuse a damsel in distress? Simon Blackwell has written a gem of an episode as the pair of them go all-out to impress Sally with their five-star hospitality.

Annoyingly though, Sally seems far more interested this week in going off on exciting day trips with cafe owner Rajan (Vincent Ebrahim) who also fancies his chances. It's a simple set-up packed with memorable one-liners. But funniest of all perhaps is Roy (Clive Swift) serving up giant-sized cheese straws, and his rather adorable attempts to avoid hearing any news during the day.

Jane Simon, The Mirror, 30th July 2010

Building work drives Sally (Jane Asher) into the home of the Pensioners Behaving Badly for a week. As Tom says, "God has answered my mad prayer." While the boys suffocate her with aromatherapy candles, Rajan takes the opportunity to spirit her away on endless dates (great eyebrow work from Vincent Ebrahim). Also contains a heartfelt requiem for TV's golden age, with the speculation that if Peter Ustinov were around today, the only way he would get 70s-style audience figures would be if he were to "ice-skate naked while Ant and Dec fed him koala testicles."

Ali Catterall, The Guardian, 30th July 2010

Tonight's is the best episode so far. Nothing fancy, just well observed, cheekily inventive and full of good lines. I loved Tom and Roy's baffled exchange about scented candles and why women like them so much. I'm sure it's a question that has crossed a few men's minds over the years. The reason for the discussion is that Sally (Jane Asher), the object of Roy and Tom's helpless, hopeless desires, is having her bathroom done, so she comes to stay with them, and they proceed to fall over themselves to impress her with their domestic arrangements. Naturally, they overdo it - nobody really needs kedgeree and kidneys for breakfast. It's such a good episode that even Vincent Ebrahim as Rajan, the pushy local café owner, comes into his own at last, proving to be a love rival and, annoyingly, much better at flirting with Sally. But it's Roger Lloyd Pack as Tom who steals the honours: his roguish old rebel is in danger of turning into a classic.

David Butcher, Radio Times, 30th July 2010

Ageing housemates Tom (Roger Lloyd Pack) and Roy (Clive Swift) continue to trade quick-fire gags in this old-fashioned sitcom. Tonight, Tom gets a surprise when Sally (Jane Asher) turns up asking to use the shower - "God has answered my mad prayer" - but before long she's moving in for the week, causing the men predictable grief.

Chris Harvey, The Daily Telegraph, 30th July 2010

Something's bothering me about this second series of The Old Guys. Vincent Ebrahim has joined as Rajan, a local café owner, but his character is underwritten and adds nothing - so why introduce him? Tonight the mystery deepens, as Tom and Roy meet Rajan as if for the first time and his café opens for business - though they've encountered him and it in previous episodes. Did the writers think we wouldn't notice? Anomalies aside, it's an enjoyable storyline. "Finally I'll get to do things my way," Tom gloats. "No cooker, no kettle, just a Sodastream. Everything fizzy! Fizzy milk, Roy - the dream!"

David Butcher, The Radio Times, 23rd July 2010

Jane Asher, Cherie Lunghi and, this week, Tessa Wyatt - the woman who once broke Tony Blackburn's heart. Well, we can see what Roy and Tom's type is when it comes to women: middle-class, actressy types with lovely vowels and no interest in either Roy or Tom.

Having finally accepted that they don't stand a chance with their neighbour Sally, this week the pair decide to break their addiction to her by meeting other women.

As they both end up on the same date with the same woman, the comedy is as corny and predictable as ever, but it's carried along by Roger Lloyd Pack and Clive Swift's considerable boyish charm.

Jane Simon, The Mirror, 16th July 2010

Tonight, another episode that builds slowly but soon gets us laughing along to the delusional antics of bickering odd couple Tom and Roy. Their combination of emotional clumsiness and determination to do each other down keeps reminding you of another pair of hopeless, cohabiting men... Of course, it's Mark and Jez in Peep Show, written by the same writing team! The Old Guys is softer edged and slower paced, but the observation can be just as sharp. This week the pair end up competing to impress the same potential date. A highlight is Roy's description of what his marriage used to be like, which begins, "Have you ever been to the London Dungeon...?"

David Butcher, Radio Times, 16th July 2010

The second series continues of this hybrid of Men Behaving Badly and The Odd Couple. As usual, schoolboyish OAPs Tom (Roger Lloyd Pack) and Roy (Clive Swift) are trying to attract the same woman, Sally (Jane Asher). Roy mocks Tom's flirting technique thus: "That's your pretend laugh. I thought you were choking." I gave a few pretend laughs myself, but some real ones, too.

The Daily Telegraph, 16th July 2010

Written by Peep Show creators Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong, with assistance from Simon Blackwell, The Old Guys is a reasonably successful attempt at fitting their "edgy" comic sensibilities - they also contribute to The Thick of It - within a more traditional mainstream framework.

Amusing, lively and nicely performed, this comedy about mismatched OAPs, played by sitcom stalwarts Roger Lloyd-Pack and Clive Swift, has improved since its first series.

Lloyd-Pack in particular looks far more comfortable, and hogs all the best lines as a feckless old hippie.

While the similarities to Peep Show, in terms of dialogue and characterisation, are still distracting, The Old Guys has an agreeable charm of its own. Ignore the woeful My Family which goes out before it: the mainstream sitcom is far from dead.

Paul Whitelaw, The Scotsman, 13th July 2010

It wasn't a proud evening for television. BBC1 saw the return of a couple of lame old sitcoms. It was like having a pair of irritating old uncles round for the evening, affable enough, but not half as funny as think they are. Oh they are inoffensive I suppose, but inoffensive isn't really good enough for prime-time Friday night viewing. My Family's continued success, year after year, is an absolute mystery to me. The Old Guys is the younger and marginally less irritating of the two uncles. To be fair, I did quite like one line: "She keeps on going out with men who aren't even remotely us." But nor is "quite like one line" good enough.

Sam Wollaston, The Guardian, 10th July 2010

It may be Pensioners Behaving Badly, but I found the first series of this comedy from the writers behind Peep Show (predominantly Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong, with this first episode written by Simon Blackwell) more enjoyable than the concept would indicate. Roger Lloyd Pack and Clive Swift bicker about everything, not least their mutual attraction to neighbour Sally (Jane Asher).

Scott Matthewman, The Stage, 9th July 2010

Moved to a new home on Friday nights, where it's much-needed, the second series of The Old Guys feels as comfortable as a pair of slippers.

Ironically, the first series suffered from the fact that it was created by Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong. Their fans would have been expecting Peep Show for pensioners - and it certainly wasn't that.

It was more like Men Behaving Badly meets One Foot In The Grave. Its sense of humour might be cutting but it could never be described as cutting-edge, and it wasn't trying to be. It was safe, cosy and non-threatening - aimed firmly at the kind of viewers who loved Clive Swift as Hyacinth's husband in Keeping Up Appearances.

Series two finds Swift and Roger Lloyd Pack's flat-sharing Old Couple still lusting after their sexy but oblivious neighbour Sally (Jane Asher) and dismayed that she's found "another bloody boyfriend who isn't us". But there's a new woman on the scene - a librarian, played (improbable as it sounds) by Cherie Lunghi. You can already start to see Jane Asher's glamorous hackles rise and having a bit of competition (even for two men she's not remotely interested in) should put the cat among the pigeons.

This week Tom and Roy enter a pub quiz to prove that age hasn't shrunk their brain cells. And Tom's quest continues to underline how even though they might both be old, he's not as old as Roy. "You did National Service in Caterham," he points out. "I did acid in Wardour Street."

Jane Simon, The Mirror, 9th July 2010

The sitcom shuffles into a second series but if you're coming at it new, prepare yourself for a world that's a lot less subtle than that more famous creation from writers Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong, Peep Show. The flaw this opener shows up is that the dialogue doesn't seem to sit right coming out of the mouths of the show's aged housemates. Still, we're in the safe hands of comic veterans Roger Lloyd Pack and Clive Swift of Keeping Up Appearances.

Sharon Lougher, Metro, 9th July 2010

Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong are a writing team garlanded with awards for their work on edgy comedies like The Thick of It and Peep Show. They also co-wrote the film Four Lions, Chris Morris's black comedy about suicide bombers. It might seem a far cry from Four Lions to two old codgers, but Bain and Armstrong's likeable sitcom about an ageing pair of ill-matched blokes has the same vein of recognisable absurdity running through it as all their best stuff. As we rejoin Roy (Clive Swift) and Tom (Roger Lloyd Pack), in an episode written by Simon Blackwell, they are eating olives and rice cakes for breakfast while arguing about whose turn it is to do the shopping. The fact that male hopelessness in everything from shopping to romance remains as much a problem in age as in youth is a joke the series plays off well. The pair are still clumsily besotted with their neighbour Sally (Jane Asher) and concerned that she has a new boyfriend ("She keeps going out with men who aren't even remotely us," moans Tom). But now there's a new distraction - a stylish librarian, Barbara, played by Cherie Lunghi.

David Butcher, Radio Times, 9th July 2010

The Old Guys get back on the bus (for free, presumably) for a second series. Written by Peep Show's Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong with The Thick of It writer Simon Blackwell and a cast that includes Clive Swift, Roger Lloyd Pack, Katherine Parkinson and Jane Asher, it oozes class. Series one perhaps didn't quite live up to expectations, but really warmed up over the six episodes. Let's hope that continues with tonight's first episode, as the pair try to win a pub quiz.

The Guardian, 9th July 2010

What at first glance appeared to be an unpromising hybrid of Grumpy Old Men and One Foot in the Grave has turned out to be rather an endearing sitcom, which is back for a second series starting tonight. The two central characters, played by veterans Roger Lloyd Pack (instantly recognisable as Trigger from Only Fools and Horses, despite the shaggy grey hair and stubble) and Clive Swift (aka Mr Hyacinth Bucket) are not simply crotchety, they're also randy, caustic, competitive and mean - the opening scene finds them eating stale rice cakes with tomato purée for breakfast because they're in deadlock about whose turn it is to do the "big shop". Writers Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong previously created the Channel 4 odd-couple comedy Peep Show, so they're skilled at creating awkward scenarios, but it is the casual banter between Tom (Lloyd Pack), a sarcastic one-time rock'n'roller, and Roy (Swift), a peevish wannabe sophisticate, that makes the show. The best moment in this opening episode comes when the two of them attempt to impress a sexy new librarian (Cherie Lunghi) with their choice of reading material. Tom opts for Madame Bovary, a DIY manual and a book about improving sexual technique. "She's going to think I'm a sensitive, practical guy who's good in bed," he boasts. "Or possibly a suicidal self-abuser whose shelves are falling down," Roy retorts. OK, so it's not Seinfeld, but it's worth a look.

Sam Richards, The Daily Telegraph, 9th July 2010

The Old Guys Review

The rather conventional sitcom starring Roger Lloyd-Pack and Clive Swift didn't cause too many ripples when it debuted last year, but it's receiving a fair bit of hype this time round. For the most part, this hype is deserved.

Written by Sean Marland. On The Box, 8th July 2010

Jane Asher interview

She might be posh but Jane Asher reckons she'd be able to hold her own on some of Glasgow's toughest streets. The 64-year-old has just returned home to London after filming BBC series The Old Guys in Govan.

Written by Paul English. The Daily Record, 4th July 2010

The Weekend's Television: The Old Guys

When I looked back at my notes I found that they made me laugh. What it is a little harder to say was whether the lines made me laugh because they're inherently funny, or because six weeks has given me time to get used to Roger Lloyd Pack's character, so I can now relish just how typical of him those lines are. That's one of the tricks a good sitcom has to pull off, after all, to get the audience to the stage where they feel affectionately knowing about a character's follies.

Written by Tom Sutcliffe. The Independent, 9th March 2009