Four modern young witches share a house in Camden, north London in this new supernatural comedy-drama. Former EastEnder Lacey Turner stars and Caroline Quentin plays one of the witches' overprotective mums. They struggle to juggle their advertising/physiotherapy careers with being both magic and beautiful. Of course, the Camden witches have a feud going with some posh ones from west London. It's not at all sophisticated or layered in a Buffy way but decent fluff nevertheless.

Switch interview: Caroline Quentin

Caroline Quentin features in a couple of episodes of Switch as the hippy mother of one of the witches, who is a bit handy with magic herself. We spoke to her on-set earlier in the year.

A strong cast doesn't conceal the fact that, on the evidence of the opening two episodes, this new comedy scripted by Holly Walsh and the usually reliable Sharon Horgan (above) needs to be funnier and darker. Horgan plays Helen, wrongly sent to prison for killing her boss. Nobody on the outside, including her hopeless lawyer (Geoff McGivern), seems able to help, while inside she has to contend with the malevolent governor (Jennifer Saunders). Future episodes promise star appearances by Caroline Quentin and Miranda Richardson.

Caroline Quentin wants Men Behaving Badly to return

Caroline Quentin has not ruled out a return of the hit comedy Men Behaving Badly.

Portrait of the artist: Caroline Quentin, actor

'I could name on one hand the things I've done that are OK. The rest are rubbish.'

This much I know: Caroline Quentin

The 51-year-old actor on big hands and working-mum roles.

Have you watched the sitcom Life Of Riley on BBC1? Seriously, have you watched an entire episode? tvBite has. It's got Caroline Quentin at her most patronising, the new Barnaby from Midsomer displaying the comedic personality of a funeral, and some stage school kids. Now it might not sound very good, but it's actually much worse than that. It's an achievement of sorts, but it is somehow worse than the sum of its appalling parts. And it is now on its third series.

I think some enterprising media student should do some work on the centrality of the live-in kitchen in the contemporary sitcom. Think how often you see them in domestic comedies (My Family, Outnumbered, Absolutely Fabulous, Lead Balloon), in part, I guess, because they provide a reasonably plausible intersection for every generation of a family. The sitting room, intriguingly, is more frequently used for quieter scenes between just a couple of characters, suggesting that it has taken on the role of an Elizabethan "withdrawing room" (which, as Dr Worsley explained, was the origin of the drawing room). Beyond that, I'm not sure I have a lot to say about Life of Riley, a blended-family comedy that stars Caroline Quentin and Neil Dudgeon. It offers some funny moments and a masterclass in comic acting from Marcia Warren, but it too often goes for retreads of over-familiar jokes, such as a daughter-mother reversal in respect of sexual censoriousness. It's the opposite of Marmite. If you like it I reckon you're going to like it in a take-it-or-leave-it kind of way. And if you don't, you're going to find it tricky to get heated about the fact. It does include a rather sweet baby, though, greeted with a collective crooning "Aahhh!" by the studio audience every time she appears. Which tells you quite a lot about the programme, actually.