David Baddiel

In an hour, they packed in Ruby Wax's RSC reminiscences (she couldn't master the wench accent), a tribute to Richard Beckinsale, Neil Innes on Rutland Weekend TV (surely worth a repeat), a little bit about the over-rated Adrian Mole, Alan Carr's guide to Northampton, David Baddiel going back to school, Mel and Sue in Oxford, David Renwick's life on the Luton News and the evolution of Spitting Image. Great value for money!

Of course they aren't really David Baddiel and Peter Bradshaw in the programme. But this is a very funny sitcom on the Jerry Seinfeld model: David Baddiel's character is an architect called David Baddiel, and he exercises his familiar, likeable stand-up persona inside a fictional world. It's refreshing to see a British sitcom character bypass the usual range of gurning reaction shots and quite patently appear "as himself".

Regardless of what is to come though, it is difficult not to dismiss Baddiel's Syndrome in its entirety. Kooky foreign cleaners, amusing Yanks, and a toff neighbour are not the framework for classic comedy in the 21st century.

Watching the first episode, two things became apparent: firstly, Frank Skinner isn't actually that funny and bluffs his way through much of the show with a kind of rogue-ish charm; secondly, the respective profiles of Baddiel and Skinner are becoming more and imbalanced. If the audience's reaction was anything to go by, Baddiel is now little more than Skinner's stooge.

Analyse this...

The first thing that strikes you about this sitcom, which Baddiel has written with journalist Pete Bradshaw, is that it doesn't look like a British sitcom. It looks like an American sitcom which happens to be set in Camden Town.

Unlike the doomed Sessions, to whom we were almost compelled to feel indebted, Baddiel and Skinner make us feel as though we are their contemporaries. This isn't a performance we're watching, it's a happening (albeit a low-key happening) that we're part of.

I award five funny bones to Health And Efficiency (BBC1) and Bottom (BBC2). Four to Ellen and Roseanne (both Channel 4). Three to Fantasy Football League and Darts (both BBC2). Two to The High Life for Cumming and Masson, a double act working with a pair of scissors.