Caitlin Moran

Go on, make me laugh

Little Britain and Nighty Night made BBC Three's name. But can channel head Stuart Murphy keep putting smiles on our faces?

Gervais has made actorly claims that Millman is different kettle of fish to David Brent - more reactive - but Millman is, in fact, just a slightly less cocky version of Brent. Along with Gervais being less cocky, there is also the question of the cast also being considerably less. Whereas The Office was an ensemble piece, in Extras Gervais is practically alone save for his buffoonish, shag-hungry fellow-extra, Maggie Jacobs (Ashley Jensen).

But Nathan Barley is unfocused, both structurally and in its satire. Personally, I suspect that as Chris Morris -- along with his co-writer Charlie Brooker, who originally created the Nathan Barley character on his peerless website TVGoHome -- did their reputed three years of research on Hoxton, they found that Hoxtonites' main obsessions (new technology, unlistenable music, the boundaries of acceptability, silly slang) were, in fact, pretty close to many of their own.

The Green Wing looks like a fairly safe bet for the year's best comedy - sick, silly, with an unprecedented three-strong female leads, an unprecedented hour-long running-time, innovative directorial style and the best musical breakfast sequence featuring grapefruit since Morecambe & Wise.

By contrast, Eyes Down (tonight, 9.30pm, BBC One), the second series of the Paul "Lily Savage" O'Grady sitcom set in a bingo hall, is like watching a sitcom that's been salvaged from a ship sunk during the war. At one point it felt like a shoal of bloated little crabs was streaming out of its eyes. I think they may have just eaten all of the funniness in the show.

In itself, it's quite enjoyable; and I dare say there isn't a single person in Britain who won't enjoy watching Martin Clunes enjoying himself in the novel role of a curmudgeon, but, really. A plot where a man in the village starts to grow a cracking pair of tits? Tsk.

From the writer of Men Behaving Badly, Simon Nye, and starring the Man Behaving Badly Neil Morrissey, BBC One's new sitcom essentially poses the question: "What if, instead of going out with the disapproving Leslie Ash, Neil Morrissey played a character married to someone just like Martin Clunes - but a woman!?!"

Director's Commentary is part of that tradition of smart-arse people talking over other people's programmes (Harry Hill's TV Burp, Beavis and Butthead, Animal Magic) by way of sundry E. L. Wisty diversions ("I've always said the thyroid is the cruellest gland"), and brightens up ITV's Wednesday-night schedules like a bunch of stolen daffodils.

It is, simply, a clever idea that works well on television - unlike the Perrier Award-winning Garth Marenghi's Darkplace (Channel 4, Thursday, 10.35pm) which is a clever idea that doesn't work well on television.

As if to underline how amusingly self-important we are about our comedy, Britain's Best Sitcom will have a ten-week run, presenting hour-long lectures on entries for the title of "Britain's Best Sitcom". Then there 's to be a vote -- calls 80p per minute, mobiles will vary -- followed by the deflating realisation that, in fact, nothing of any use has been achieved whatsoever.