Grace Dent on TV: Through the Keyhole, ITV

The perma-tanned prankster and his painfully unfunny peep show should be shown the door.

Grace Dent on TV: Big School, BBC One

Today's lesson - how to produce a pleasurable comedy that passes the perils-of-primetime test.

Last Saturday I watched Micky Flanagan, one of Britain's finest stand-ups, employed by BBC 1 to help place a large Yorkshire pudding on a map to prove he knew where Peterborough was, as pop star and game-show favourite Jamelia sang "All You Need Is Love" in a club style. I Love My Country on BBC 1 aims to capture the Olympic 2012 spirit in a tightly formatted game show. It is the show Shooting Stars with Vic and Bob would have been if the BBC had got its way. More rules, more points, more logic, more enforced zany antics. I watched for 20 minutes and, with a growing migraine, realised I love my country but I also love the television off and the pleasant sound of silence.

It's no secret that many alleged "grown-ups" are supplementing their haphazard history educations with CBBC's Horrible Histories, back for its fifth series with lovely, daft input from The League of Gentlemen. Tiny, mighty Sarah Hadland from Miranda and funny, clever Alice Lowe, writer of Sightseers are regular faces too. To adult eyes, Horrible Histories has the distinct feel of a group of bright, young, erudite, writery-actory sparks having a tremendously good time. One that they probably wouldn't be permitted to have anywhere else on telly.

Kids love them as they are the most peculiar sort of grown-ups. The sort of wonky uncles and aunties who turn up to tea with mild hangovers, scant regard for etiquette and a host of stories about idiot highway men, Second World War bat bombs (bombs attached to bats, prone to exploding before they left the American base) and an imaginary CD compilation called Now That's What I Call Spartan Warrior Music.

There's something about the Horrible Histories gang I find terrifically, stupidly, funny. They're the best bits of Monty Python, Roald Dahl, Tiswas, BBC2's The Tudors and The Young Ones all shoved into a bin and bashed with a stick. "Divorced, beheaded and Died! Divorced, Beheaded, Survived!" is the song that carousels in my mind whenever anyone mentions Henry VIII. Horrible Histories drummed the order of Henry's wives and their fates into my mind where A-level cramming failed forlornly. If only Mathew Baynton and Ben Willbond had shown up at my school in the Nineties and sung a few songs about the fall of the Holy Roman Empire, I could have a proper job now. Not just writing down stuff I think, drinking Earl Grey and taking Yodel deliveries in for neighbours.

Vicious, my type of television, is the panto-style tale of two heavily theatrical, caustic old homosexuals - Ian McKellen and Derek Jacobi - living in a dark flat, curtains drawn, loathing everyone, with occasional visits from sublime proto-hag Violet - Frances de la Tour - who turns up to add deadpan fuel to their bitching bonfire. Broad, brash and shallow this may be, but if this isn't at least a rough outline of my life in the Starlight Home for Retired Hacks circa 2057, then something has gone very awry. I rather loved British stalwart Marcia Warren as Penelope, when the ensemble sat sipping tea at a gay wake, remembering their dead friend's terrific affection for handsome men. "Wasn't there a wife?" Penelope said, scrunching her face to remember the finer details of the 1960s, "I'm sure I remember a wife?" "Ugh, 17 years," McKellen hissed with an airy wave.

Most of the opening jaunt of Vicious featured the aged couple making colossal fools of themselves by flirting with their new twenty-something neighbour. If one really wants something to get terrifically het up about, one could say the whole show glorified sexual assault and augmented gay stereotypes. I just took it for a lovely, daft, gay, romp full of acidic quips. It's too beautifully easy and temporarily satisfying to detest all new comedy on sight. I do it myself.

The opening titles roll, the first scene appears establishing characters in broad strokes. "Ugh, I hate everyone here!" the internet roars, 'I hate the fact this was even made, I hate everyone involved, in fact this shit-fest is the amalgamation of all that is wrong, safe, depressing and nepotism-fuelled about British TV commissioning." Obviously, in the case of BBC1's The Wright Way, this is not only true but an understatement, but, in most cases, it's just a show gathering momentum.

The Job Lot, set in a West Midlands Job Centre, was really rather loveable. Russell Tovey as a beleaguered dole-claim clerk, Sarah Hadland as his anxious boss, plus an ensemble cast featuring an anally retentive toxic pen-pusher (Jo Enright, one of Britain's best character actresses), the long-term professionally idle Sophie McShera (Downton Abbey) plus the glorious Adeel Akhtar (Four Lions and Utopia). Russell Tovey's delightful "stick your job up your arse" strop, followed a mere 10 minutes later by a complete volte-face genuinely made me gleeful. In fact, I could watch Sophie McShera argue with Russell Tovey about why she can't take any of the jobs on offer for the entire episode. Tovey: "Greggs, the bakery, 15 hours a week?" McShera: "I'm wheat-intolerant".

Grace Dent on TV: Vicious and The Job Lot, ITV

You could say it glorified sexual assault and stereotyped gays, but I took it as a lovely daft romp.

Grace Dent on TV: The Wright Way (BBC1)

Ben Elton has created an admirably broad new comedy. Shame it's not admirably funny.

Grace Dent on TV: Mrs Brown's Boys BBC1

Irritating relatives, terrible jokes, mindless banter: the perfect accompaniment to a family Christmas

Grace Dent on television: Best Possible Taste

Annoyingly, the Beeb's Kenny Everett story really was in the best possible taste.