Joe Clay

Daisy Haggard on Back To Life returning

The actress tells Joe Clay about her 'sadcom' about a female killer.

Ben Miller: funny man who needs to take on office bully

One half of the comedy duo Armstrong and Miller stars in ITV's new drama about workplace victimisation.

Guilt review

Plenty of guilty pleasures from darkest Scotland.

ITV hasn't nailed the formula for a late-night chat show (although Dermot O'Leary is giving The Nightly Show a pretty good crack), but it's hard to fault its ability to put on a mainstream variety show - if you like that sort of thing. The scheduling feels odd (surely this is one for the weekend?), but the line-up ticks a few boxes. Joining the host, Bradley Walsh, are the Brit award-winning singer Emeli Sande; the magician Pete Firman; the returning pop ensemble Steps, performing their comeback single Scared of the Dark, Ben Forster singing The Music of the Night from The Phantom of the Opera; and talent from the Chinese State Circus, who will leave mouths agape.

Greg Davies's madcap sitcom scales new heights of brilliance as Dan (Davies) joins Brian's Running Club and falls under the spell of the running coach Dominic (a hilarious turn by Ramon Tikaram). A mystical guru with an unfeasibly large posterior (or "a big magic arse" as Dan puts it), Dominic takes Dan under his wing to dispense life advice, much to Brian's irritation. Elsewhere, the demented Jo finds herself homeless, and ends up camping on the side of the road, where she goes on a "modern forage".

Man Down is definitely an acquired taste, but then so was The Young Ones, and while this won't have the same cultural impact, it is packed with similarly irreverent laughs.

For most TV aficionados, Charlie Brooker winning Best Newcomer at last year's British Comedy Awards was a strange one. The man whose full name is actually "The Acerbic TV Critic Charlie Brooker" has been around for a while now, but an award of some kind was fully deserved. You Have Been Watching is one of those comedy panel shows that masquerades as a quiz. Brooker invites three celebrity guests to join him as he shouts and shakes his fist at the world of telly. Points are awarded, but there are never right or wrong answers - just biting, satirical wit and surreal silliness.

For supposedly benign, ratings-friendly Sunday night fodder, the first episode of the fourth series of Doc Martin has a rather gory opening. Martin Clunes, reprising the role of Martin Ellingham, the GP with the bedside manner that makes Alan Sugar look like Florence Nightingale, is seen running down the high street carrying a bag of bloody liver. Then, an angelic blonde girl has a pencil embedded in her face. And to cap it all off, the Doc ends up with a shard of glass embedded in his palm. All these signs are pointers to the main storyline - Martin is considering going back to being a surgeon but must first conquer the fear of blood that scuppered his original career choice. His reason for the change of heart? The absence of a certain school teacher...

8 Out of 10 Cats, the hit-and-miss quiz show hosted by Jimmy Carr at his most smugly slappable, returns for a new run. Of the team captains, Sean Lock is always good value ("All these hurricanes hitting New Orleans proves my theory that God hates jazz") but the guests can often be a rum bunch, with soap stars and vapid T4 presenters appearing alongside the comic talent.

This hour-long special of the colourfully chaotic comedy series picks up the action in the aftermath of the wedding between Madge and Mel on the beach. Mel is taken to hospital after being knocked unconscious by a paragliding Geoff (Johnny Vegas) - "East Lancashire's indoor paragliding champion" - and Madge and Janice, in their desperation to get to the hospital, get into a car with a man who is the spitting image of Javier Bardem's character in No Country for Old Men, right down to the haircut and limp. So begins an inspired homage to the Coen brothers' movie, as the Bardem character turns out to be violent drug smuggler Enrique "The Rat" Lopez, who kidnaps Madge and Janice at gunpoint. (He does have an air canister and hose but not as a weapon - his car has a slow puncture.) The trio then return to the hotel where all the familiar grotesques become embroiled in the action. Roll on series three.

There has been much to admire in this update of the Seventies sitcom, which comes to the end of its six episode run tonight. Martin Clunes's performance has been terrific; a reminder of his many strengths as a comic actor that were starting to become buried under less-pleasing memories of mawkish turns in undemanding ITV comedy dramas. The writing has been sharp and the laughs have come thick and fast. In fact, the series might have been better served if it hadn't been named after its predecessor, leaving it so open to comparisons. The key themes still resonate, especially in the current climate, and without the name 'Reggie Perrin' hanging over it, the writers may have been able to move it into unchartered territory rather than sticking so rigidly to the original plotting. But it should still be considered a resounding success.