Frank Skinner

Mel Giedroyc takes a break from cake to reveal her personal nightmares - including pretentious types who pronounce spaghetti with the full Italian accent - in the hope that Frank Skinner will consign them to the oblivion of Room 101. But there's tough competition from her fellow guests: actor Hugh Dennis is lobbying for Las Vegas to be wiped from the face of the earth, while Cilla Black has a lorra lorra laffs trying to trash modern technology. And knickers.

There often comes an awkward moment when the guests outline their pet hates and you wonder if the audience will applaud at the end of the pitch. Sometimes they don't, and it leaves the celeb stranded, because the line between righteous yes-we-all-hate-that anger and ranting about minutiae is a hazy one.

Luckily, host Frank Skinner usually rides to the rescue with a well-observed quip. Tonight, he tops Mel Giedroyc's gripe about people who overpronounce Italian words in restaurants ("spag-HAY-tee") by observing that if you tried the same in a Chinese restaurant, it would be dreadful. Meanwhile, Hugh Dennis hates leaving cards, and Cilla Black believes there's a conspiracy surrounding knickers.

Frank Skinner seems uncharacteristically star-struck at having Cilla Black on the show, perhaps because so many of his guests have been distinctly underwhelming (even boring) so far this series. Cilla's professional sparkle certainly jollies along some fairly morose contributions from comedian Hugh Dennis and TV presenter Mel Giedroyc as they discuss their competitive dislikes of, among other things, pompous celebrities, office leaving cards, Las Vegas and knickers.

Frank Skinner pulls back his magic joystick to reveal another set of extreme dislikes. While the delightfully offbeat Paloma Faith would give Ugg boots the boot and merrily accuses Skinner of voting Tory, she's disconcerted by the tendencies of her fellow guests, blokey comedian Jason Manford and Dragons' Den moneybags Deborah Meaden, who can't bear it when she has to wait behind people rummaging for change in a shop. Like she does her own shopping.

Frank Skinner on his TV choices

"You may claim that Merlin and Doctor Who are children's television but not I. To me, Merlin seemed to cover all the great themes of humanity..."

The best bit of this comedy panel show has to be the ingenious 3D models that illustrate the pet hates of Frank Skinner's guests. What will they come up with for Extreme Fishing With Robson Green, which gets Janet Street-Porter's goat? Among Ben Fogle's bugbears is the suitcase on wheels, while skyscraper comedian Greg Davies - The Inbetweeners' stern head - really, really, really hates pointless TV interviews with members of the public. Let the squabbles commence.

Miranda Hart popped up all over the TV at Christmas, pratfalling her way through her own Yuletide special and the start of her third series. Not to mention Call The Midwife. Yet she still has time to drop by and do verbal battle with fellow guests John Craven and Reggie Yates as they try to persuade host Frank Skinner to dump their personal pet hates into Room 101. Bluetooth gets Yates's goat, Craven loathes Kindles, while Hart would like to dispose of her own breasts, which have been known to clap at inappropriate moments. Such fun.

You can't invite Miranda Hart on this kind of panel show and not expect her to dominate. She is one of three guests hoping to convince host Frank Skinner that their pet hates should be consigned to the vault of loathing - it's the new format they launched last year, remember?

So we get the usual airing of comedy grudges, but Hart breaks new ground when she nominates not just smartphones and pineapple on pizza but, in the wildcard round, her own breasts, bemoaning all the times they have embarrassed her (once when she was rolling over in bed naked, they clapped). Skinner, whose role is normally to argue on behalf of the things the guests hate, looks floored.

Meanwhile, Reggie Yates reveals a hatred of drinking yogurt (!I don't want a cup of gone-off stuff!) as well as the ubiquitous hip-hop handshake. It's left to John Craven to play it straight. He gets the biggest cheer of the night from the studio audience when he nominates e-books.

It's not often you see Frank Skinner completely lost for words. So full marks to Miranda Hart for reducing him and her male fellow panellists to utter embarrassment with her unexpected nomination for a pet hate to consign to Room 101.

The re-imagined format is the same as it was last year when Frank Skinner stepped into Paul Merton's shoes. Three guests compete to have items in particular categories sent to pretend oblivion. Presenters John Craven and Reggie Yates also gamely do the business tonight. But it's a tougher gig than it looks.

The secret to being a really good Room 101 guest is being able to be amusingly irate about some quite trivial detail of modern life, without tipping over the edge into actual, genuine, scary anger.

The late Peter Cook calmly pointing to the mind-numbing dullness of the countryside - "has this film been speeded up?" - is still the gold standard by which all guests will be judged and Reggie Yates, bless him, is no Peter Cook. But then how het up is it possible to get about the existence of yogurt drinks?

It's hardly a dream line-up to kick off the new series of the Frank Skinner-steered Room 101: Reggie Yates, Miranda Hart and John Craven. It's a kind of post-Cameron vision of Middle England - a well-spoken young black man, a well-spoken, sexually unthreatening woman and a well-spoken John Craven, the Hawkshead catalogue of broadcasting.

Predictably, none of this lot has anything much to get worked up about: it's difficult to imagine any of them getting worked up about much ever, but really it's the format that's at fault. Room 101 doesn't work as a panel show: it needs individuals to warm to their theme, then accidentally-on-purpose reveal a colossal, Kenneth Williams-style inner Looney Tunes life. It also leaves Skinner with little to do, though he does manage to get in a decent gag about the Nazis to remind people that there are whole dark volumes of his comedy that rarely get opened these days, especially on the BBC.