David Stubbs

Amanda Holden stars as a ringmaster in this Daniel Peak-scripted, circus-based sitcom whose impressive cast also includes John Thomson, Tony Robinson and Ruth "Hi-De-Hi!" Madoc. There are so few primetime sitcoms nowadays that the experience of watching one feels surreally olde worlde - the easily tickled audience who giggle like loons even at the straight lines, foreign accents regarded as inherently amusing and jokes about a ferret down a clown's trousers "having a ball". It's almost in Mitchell and Webb's Send for Hennimore territory - like a precise pastiche of bad British comedy.

Last week's outsider from the world of the un-north was Robin Askwith as a cockney conman. This week it's Una Stubbs, who comes from the world of Posh. She plays the snooty but enigmatic Diana, who makes a flying trip to bail out her son, hapless con victim Martin. Meanwhile, The Oracle's whoppers about fighting off criminals come back to bite him on the backside, Madge gets a Bo Derek-style makeover and Gavin suspects that Troy is cheating on him. This is just one aspect of the show that makes it a bit more than Coronation Street by the pool-side.

Derren Litten's comedy showcases a certain kind of lobster-coloured all-Englishness that can only be found abroad nowadays. It's broad rather than acute, and occasionally hidebound (an Indian trainee doctor from Varanesi who speaks no English? No way), but a familiar cast, including Johnny Vegas and Steve Pemberton, help make for viewing as comfy as a carton of chips. This week, Madge runs into her marginally less horrible, estranged daughter Valda, while Robin Askwith, he of the Confessions of . . . series, crops up as a typically conniving cockney chancer.

This is an intriguing conceptual departure for CBBC. Set in Ballyfermot in Dublin, it's a pseudo-fly-on-the-wall documentary about the O'Brien family, normal in every respect - except that youngest son Roy is a cartoon. As such, he is the object of lurid fascination from other kids, who either think he is ultra-cool or resent the attention he gets. It both parodies the language surrounding minorities and special needs, while sympathetically highlighting the plight of the "different". In this opener, Roy is on a week's trial at his new school, where he raises the hackles of a pair of bullies.

Psychoville - Series 1, Episode 7 Review

After the thrilling tempo last week, this one takes a little time to get started. It kicks off with a scene in a Citizens Advice Bureau that seems out of tone with the series. But then that shows why so many have been against this: it's not what they expected. But how could you expect things like the brilliant Rope pastiche, or the serial killer song-and-dance routine, or Dawn French being so absolutely terrifying? Truth is, the show has no constant tone and is all the more kickass for it. Anyway, the end is nigh and it even has an ending . . . sort of.