Dawn French

'I've got some crystal meth in the fridge,' piped up posh Caroline at a Women's Guild drugs talk in the village hall during the painful Jam & Jerusalem). 'I actually prefer it to Dom Perignon!' This was Jennifer Saunders saving the best joke for herself, even though Caroline is only a bit part. Yes, seriously, that was the best joke.

Jam And Jerusalem is so relentlessly rubbish it actually made me suspect that I'd been on crystal meth when finding Absolutely Fabulous so funny back in the day. Because it's almost impossible to believe this bumpkinbaiting effort, which might as well be called Aren't Country Folk Daft?, is the work of the same person. La Saunders must have been sniffing way too much manure in her country retreat to imagine that J&J is fit for anything other than mulching out as a makeweight repeat on G.O.L.D.

It's almost painful to watch the likes of Sue Johnston and David Mitchell work their socks off to inject something passing for life into their cardboard cut-out characters. And the world can surely live without Dawn French contributing yet another variation on her busty yokel simpleton routine, though admittedly she does do gumby with a certain gusto.

The WI drug lecture was easily the funniest part of Jam & Jerusalem. In a wonderfully unselfish performance, Hazel John as Pauline delivered her talk with the passion of a florist describing how to assemble a seasonal bouquet. "Jeannine from the Spar has let me have her bongo or bong, and this spoon, and there's rolling papers 'ere for us to have a go," she droned. Her audience carried on gossiping about the barn conversion at the back of Sal's garden, allegedly being carried out for Charles Dance. The name Charles Dance soon trumped every argument - he had been so good as Ivory Merchant "in the film of that name" - and no rumour about the protesting Sal was too scurrilous to be believed.

Content - ie, tales from a sluggish, genteel rural community where nothing much happens - determines this series's form and nearly seals its fate. Now stitched into a whole hour, Jam & Jerusalem on its return felt a bit long and a bit slow, but I seem to remember it did at 30 minutes too. What saves it, are the surrealist touches and, actually, Dawn French, whether she is dumbly suckling a lamb or mischievously barping out the EastEnders theme when a mini bombshell of news explodes in the pub. The question is whether Jam & Jerusalem could be funnier without looking as though it were trying to be funnier and thus spoiling the whole, nonchalant, thing.

Jennifer Saunders's cosy West Country WI sitcom returns for its third run. Tonight's series-opener sees the Clatterford Guild oppose a local barn conversion - until they hear rumours that it's to house a certain celebrity. The whimsical wit may split sofa opinion, but there's no doubting the quality of the cast, which is a Who's Who of Britcom: Sue Johnston (The Royle Family), David Mitchell (Peep Show), Sally Phillips (Smack the Pony), Pauline McLynn (Father Ted) and, of course, Saunders's comedy partner Dawn French.

Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders: interview

As Jam & Jerusalem returns, Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders talk about sexism in comedy and the joys of turning 50.

Saints be praised! Sunday night television is saved by the return of Jennifer Saunders's fabulous comedy centring on the activities of the Clatterford Womens' Guild. It's brilliant, gentle stuff, but cut with a sense of anarchy that you'd expect from Saunders's writing. Sue Johnston, Dawn French and Pauline McLynn are all back, with great support from Rosie Cavaliero, David Mitchell and Maggie Steed, amongst others. This first hour long episode of three has the villagers getting flustered over a planning application - then they find out it might be for Charles Dance...

Who knew Dawn French could be quite so frightening? Even more frightening than the conjoined twins with matching eye patches or the hook-handed alcoholic clown, in fact. But if you thought she was scary, just wait till you see Freddie, her fake baby, starts talking to her over the intercom... We're beginning to realise that comedy is very much The League of Gentlemen's second love after horror.

A collection of characters - a theatre dwarf, a clown whose act has been usurped by the surgeon who amputated his hand, a blind collector of soft toys, a maternity nurse who cradles a doll as if it were the living baby she lost, an adult "mummy's boy" who attempts to be a serial killer - are caught in a mysterious web of revenge, punctuated by messages saying: "We know what you did". It is mildly sadistic and disgusting; it has many homages to other films (such as, this past week, the Hitchcock thriller Rope, in which two teenagers murder, inspired by their teacher's discussion of Nietzsche's superman) and has fleetingly haunting passages. But, unless you like mild sadism and disgust, you won't find pleasure. You certainly won't find humour, which, since Dawn French is in it, is itself an achievement

What makes this a very special sort of sitcom is that Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton dream up such horribly sinister "sits" for their "com". And the fact that we're on edge at the unpleasantness of it all makes us that bit quicker to laugh when the jokes come. It's a balancing act, but it's one they pull off cleverly, with their eyeless collector, eBay-obsessed conjoined twins and Joy, a deranged Bristolian midwife. Dawn French is great as Joy, cuddling her fake-baby "Freddie" in a papoose and, at one point, filling his drinking bottle from a hospital blood bag. Other highlights tonight include a fabulously daft fight over a Punch and Judy booth and a scene where murderous David Sowerbutts runs a bath in which to drown his next victim, urged on by his mum. This week's mystery messages, delivered to the various apparently unconnected characters by a masked figure, is simply "You killed her" - though naturally, we're no nearer to finding out who or why.

It might have links to The League of Gentlemen, but Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton, two of that august number, have managed to craft something in Psychoville that feels distinctive in its own right, despite some of the trappings of the former. While the original League had a rotten core at the centre of the dark comedy, there's a surprisingly tragic heart here, exemplified by Joy, Dawn French's doll obsessed midwife. It's hard not to feel sorry for this woman, but at the same time. She's absolutely terrifying, charged with the potential energy to go off and do something abhorrent. Chilling, brilliant and funny.

Since Royston Vasey closed its doors to business in 2002, the assorted League Of Gentlemen have scarcely set the world on fire. I don't know about you but I expected a bit more from the black-hearted crazy gang than cameos in the likes of Poirot and Benidorm. But at least two of them are back on form for now we have Psychoville (BBC2), a delirious wander back into the Gothic universe of Papa Lazarou et al.

The infected brainchild of Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton, Psychoville features a psychic porn dwarf, a scabrous one-handed children's clown called Mr Jelly, Dawn French doing penance for The Vicar Of Dibley as a demented midwife and much besides, all wrapped up in a cloak of blood-spattered menace that would do Edgar Allan Poe proud. The story thus far is not the point; episode one was all about soaking us in nutjob atmosphere.

As the coterie of oddballs each received a twirly-scripted anonymous note bearing the legend 'I Know What You Did' it was clear it was going to take a while for this plot to thicken, but there were more than enough gruesome diversions going on to galvanise the attention. I was particularly taken by much-too-close-for-comfort mother and son Maureen and David Sowerbutts, especially when she took far too long sorting out his fly. Who hasn't had a moment like that? Oh, that's just me then.

The Sowerbutts also got the best potential catchphrases, essential when students get round to re-enacting scenes. David's 'Sorry, Mum, I did a bad murder' is a definite contender. But better still was the even more disturbing 'Come and give your mummy a kiss'.