Radio Times review

As the title suggests, this sketch-comedy doesn't purport to offer a balanced portrayal of the historical subjects it puts in the therapist's chair. Instead, it's a rare chance to see some of our finest comic actresses freed from the shackles of realism.

In the first of a double bill, we see Kathy Burke transformed into a louche, foul-mouthed Queen, Sharon Horgan crooning angst as country singer Tammy Wynette and a breathy Morgana Robinson as Anna Nicole Smith. Fresh from playing enigmatic Missy in Doctor Who, Michelle Gomez steals the show as a clipped, impeccably coiffed Margaret Thatcher. "Love?" she sneers, when Rebecca Front's long-suffering therapist tentatively broaches the subject - "it's a fictitious concept, like heaven or peace or God."

Why you should be watching Psychobitches

Michelle Gomez steals the first episode of Season 2, portraying a psychopathic Maggie Thatcher.

In the therapy room of Rebecca Front's psychiatrist - where some of history's most iconic and eccentric women go to get their psyches soothed - will be the likes of Michelle Gomez, Kathy Burke and Samantha Spiro (back as a maddeningly annoying Audrey Hepburn); while new patients include Morgana Robinson playing Anna Nicole Smith, Meera Syal as the goddess Hera and Alexa Chung as The Girl With A Pearl Earring.

Michelle Gomez to star in Doctor Who

Bad Education and Green Wing star Michelle Gomez will join the cast of Doctor Who, playing the Gatekeeper of the Nethersphere.

As ever, Bad Education isn't really about the plotting. Tonight's paper-thin scenario involves a hotshot American teacher arriving at the school, taking over Alfie's class and making the kids love him. So far, so predictable. But writer and lead Jack Whitehall has an enviable way with a one-liner and a remarkable eye for the feeble posturing of male loserdom.

It's hard to work out which of the male teachers is more cringeworthy. Is it the pathetically needy Alfie? Or Mr Fraser, the self-proclaimed 'Archbishop of Banterbury'? Actually, tonight it's probably Mr Schwimmer, the Yank with his secrets and lies. Whitehall doesn't write women quite as well - Mrs Pickwell increasingly feels like a dangerously close copy of Michelle Gomez's Green Wing character Sue White - but this is still an incredibly entertaining half hour.

Series two of Jack Whitehall's sitcom kicks off with that most excruciating of school rituals: the swimming gala. Naturally, the teachers are far more competitive than the pupils and place hefty bets.

Sporting a new bowl haircut that will also bring back ugly memories for some viewers, Whitehall's character sets about bribing his class into the pool but is thwarted by a lifeguard even meaner than the deputy head.

Michelle Gomez plays the latter with gleeful menace, while Mathew Horne returns as the highly inappropriate, equally frightfully coiffed headmaster. Prepare for lewd gags and the eye-watering sight of Whitehall in nothing but Y-fronts.

Jack Whitehall's hapless teacher Alfie, the indomitable deputy head Miss Pickwell (Michelle Gomez) and master of the one-liners Grayson (Jack Bence) are back for a new term at Abbey Grove, where kids and staff are as gleefully caricatured as ever. That's gleefully in the proper sense of the word, not in the Glee sense, where the caricatures might be more subtle but the lines are a lot less funny.

Plotwise, everything centres around Alfie's ongoing infatuation with Miss Gulliver and a swimming competition, with the two strands fusing beautifully in a rip-roaring conclusion. But the plot is throwaway, something to hang a load of laugh-out-loud, knowing one-liners on, as delivered by a deft cast that breezes through them.

Chuck in a load of cultural references that anyone aged ten to 30 will easily get, and star and writer Jack Whitehall can put his feet up and relax. Job done. Grayson's withering 'Oi, Mumford & Sons called. They want their gay one back!' to Whitehall's Alfie stood out for us, but there are so many more. As far as school sitcoms go, Bad Education is top of the class.

The second series of Jack Whitehall's crazy popular Bad Education has been available on iPlayer for a while now, but you know what, we're TV purists and have decided it's worth waiting to see it premiere in all its glory on the big(ger) screen. Keep your laptops and your smart telephone android things, youths!

That wait is finally over this week when the comedian's bumbling teacher Alfie Wickers, who's now sporting a retro bowl cut, kicks off a new term by bribing his long-suffering class into taking part in a swimming gala organised by clueless headmaster Fraser (Mathew Horne) after taking a bet from the terrifying Miss Pickwell (Michelle Gomez). Oh blimey, there's surely only one way this can be heading... Jack Whitehall in Speedos.

It receives its TV debut on Tuesday, but those looking to catch Jack Whitehall's classroom comedy early can watch it on iPlayer, as part of BBC Three's quietly revolutionary policy of premiering all of its comedy online. Bad Education's still not essential by any stretch, but Whitehall's impudent presence, not to mention that of the always-great Michelle Gomez, means that it remains watchable.