Adrian Scarborough

Childhood sweethearts Alfie (Blake Harrison) and Carly are getting married, but when the latter bottles it at the altar, Alfie is flung back into the arms of his B&B-running family. Created by Stella scribe Robert Evans, everything from Alfie's outrageous grandma to Adrian Scarborough's presence as Uncle Gary, is a reminder that this is neither as sharp nor as winning as the very similar Gavin And Stacey, but the performances lift it beyond mediocrity.

There's a faint whiff of Stella-on-Sea about this retro comedy-drama starring Inbetweener Blake Harrison as lovesick puppy Alfie, whose childhood sweetheart dumps him on their wedding day. It's set in the 1980s-themed Margate guest house run by Alfie's mum Judy (Camille Coduri) - but there's a high-camp spin-off series in the making over at Alfie's uncle's flat, where True Blood causes passions to run high in a curious ménage à trois between Marcia Warren, in fine fettle as Alfie's grandma, Adrian Scarborough as Bald Uncle Gary and Robert Evans - the show's writer - as Gary's partner, Camp Gary.

It seems that ITV has noted with envy the success of some BBC sitcoms and is now trying to emulate them. First we had sitcom Vicious, about a bickering gay couple, which was quite possibly inspired by the camp Mrs Brown's Boys. Now comes this comedy drama set in an Eighties-themed B&B in Margate, which feels like it's aiming for the ensemble romcom sweetness of another BBC hit, Gavin & Stacey.

Blake Harrison (The Inbetweeners) stars as hapless hero Alfie, an asthmatic sofa salesman who is jilted at the altar, acquires an unwise tattoo and is prone to accidents. He's surrounded by a cast of caricatures: his brassy mother, long-suffering stepdad, batty gran, snarling tomboy sister (who bears an uncanny resemblance to Gavin & Stacey's Nessa) and gay uncle (Adrian Scarborough, who actually was in Gavin & Stacey).

The seaside setting and presence of random Welsh accents further fuel suspicions that someone on the production sat down with a Gavin & Stacey boxset and a notepad. Sadly, this isn't quite as warm or subtly written. Still, there are compensations: there are signs of a sweet, slowburning romance between Harrison and his ex's best friend (ex-EastEnders actress Louisa Lytton), Scarborough is waspishly good value and a ballroom dancing sub-plot will amuse Strictly fans. There are plenty of efforts to make the script seem knowingly contemporary - with references to trashy TV, Kettle Chips and vajazzles - but it all feels as dated as the B&B's Eighties decor.

Rebecca Front stars in Up the Women, written by Jessica Hynes, who co-penned the rather brilliant Spaced (1999-2001) but who, strangely, has never received the same acclaim as her co-writer Simon Pegg.

Up the Women is traditional in its format - it's set mostly in one room, in this instance a village hall where the Bunbury Intricate Crafts Circle meet. It's 1910, and one of BICC's members, Margaret (Hynes) has been seduced by Suffragettism while on a day trip to London. The group's self-appointed bossy-boots leader Helen (Front), meanwhile, is having none of it when Margaret meekly suggests the group might support women's emancipation - "Women should not have the vote. We are simple, emotional creatures."

Margaret is a brainy woman who has long since accepted that women must always defer to men, even those markedly less intelligent, and a good running gag involved her explaining electricity to the overbearing caretaker (Adrian Scarborough), who was struggling to fit a new-fangled lightbulb.

The characters - particularly Vicki Pepperdine's toothy spinster - are drawn in broad strokes, and occasionally the humour (peonies being misheard for penis, for instance) is groaningly obvious. But there are some neat lines too, and superb acting from a fantastic cast who look like they're enjoying themselves, including Judy Parfitt doing a nice turn as Helen's decidedly naughty mother, Myrtle, sexually liberated long before the term was invented by the Pankhursts' spiritual daughters. Worth staying with.

From Monty Python and The Holy Grail to Blackadder, it's long been established that one of the underlying rules of historical comedy is to subvert the period setting with knowingly incongruous nods to the present day. Which is all well and good when employed as part of a wider comic arsenal, but cheap and wearying when overdone.

Unfortunately, that's the fatal undoing of Jessica Hynes' Edwardian-era sitcom Up The Women, which drills away at the supposedly hilarious spectacle of characters from the past failing to comprehend things we now take for granted.

Thus we have Adrian Scarborough's hapless caretaker getting into a pickle over the installation of a light bulb, and Rebecca Front's bullying snob sniffily dismissing electricity as a fad that'll never catch on. These moments, I should point out, are clearly regarded by Hynes and her five co-writers as rib-tickling conceits of massive comic import. Given that Hynes is a fine actress and co-writer of fondly regarded sitcom Spaced, the unrelenting weakness of her latest effort is hugely disappointing. It's not unreasonable to expect more from one of Britain's foremost comedy performers.

The only truly notable aspect of Up The Women is that it's a traditional studio-bound sitcom accompanied by a live laughter track, an ancient form new to "high-brow" BBC 4. But that presents its own problems; you can clearly hear the underwhelmed audience almost willing themselves to laugh as gag after gag falls flat.

Lines such as "I've had to swaddle mother again, and she really does put up quite a fight" and "Does your husband know you're cavorting with skirted anarchists?" have the rhythmic cadence of funny dialogue, but they're not actually witty in themselves. A sense of embarrassingly forced whimsy hangs over its attempts to revel in florid language à la Blackadder. But Hynes and co aren't in the same league as Curtis and Elton at their peak.

The characters speak in a combination of BBC Edwardiana and anachronistic contemporary argot, which, if one were feeling charitable, could be regarded as a parody of Andrew Davies' penchant for dropping contemporary terms into his period dramas. But the paucity of wit on display means it's all for naught.

Hynes plays a timid yet worldly-wise idealist whose belief in the suffragette movement throws her into sharp conflict with Front's stubbornly immovable conservative. And that's about it. All concerned - including an almost unrecognisable Vicki Pepperdine from Getting On as a daffy, buck-toothed housekeeper - deliver game performances, but no amount of gusto can compensate for such poor material. Having wasted such a fine cast, Up The Women merely wanders along to unremarkable effect.

Even taking into account the inherent difficulties of introducing a brand new sitcom over the course of 30 minutes, this lifeless groaner has to be regarded as a failure.