Radio Times review

Star and showrunner Ruth Jones wisely hands her scripting laptop to Steve Speirs, the actor who does such fine light comic work as Big Alan, for Big Alan's big episode. Yes, Alan's taken hostage by a militant pensioner on a bus trip to Bristol Zoo, but his main trial is convincing Celia to give him another chance after he bottled out of taking their relationship further.

Speirs writes himself a perfectly sweet and unpretentious scene, but doesn't stop there. Stella and Michael (Jones and Patrick Baladi) also have a series of lovely two-handers, while Emma rues her dalliance with her boss and young, silly Ben gets involved in a classic example of teenagers acting stupidly but all too believably.

Radio Times review

Not as many funny lines as usual in this episode, although Yasmine Akram is overplaying it nicely as Parvadi, the dangerously bored and randy assistant in her uncle's convenience store. Oh, and the rivalry between business partners Aunty Brenda and Dai Davies is becoming obsessively bitter, to the point where only murder or fiery sex can resolve the tension. Either would be scary.

Mainly, though, we're tracking the twin romances of Emma and Marcus, an unlikely workplace fling that's moving too quickly, and Stella and Michael. A lovely set piece sees her save him from embarrassment at a corporate do. The chemistry between Ruth Jones and Patrick Baladi, both unshowily nailing the subtleties of their characters, is a joy.

Radio Times review

Ultimately there's a good reason this show is called Stella and not, I don't know, Greetings from Pontyberry or some such. The ensemble are like a family we love seeing once a week, but the heart of the show is always Ruth Jones's creation. Her hopes and feelings are ours.

So this series is easy and uplifting because this year's upward-looking, bright blonde Stella is on form. This week, she and next-door neighbour Michael (Patrick Baladi) move closer, a slow courtship we'll be content to watch unfurl. It starts when she slams his fingers in his car bonnet.

Tonight's comic set piece is a Brenda's Buses trip to a nightclub, featuring two celebrity cameos: X Factor/Big Brother star Rylan Clark, and his teeth.

Radio Times review

It's a canny move, placing Stella's new antagonist Michael (Patrick Baladi) in the house next to hers. With Aunty Brenda and her new brood just across the road, not to mention those weird people with the donkey, the street's crowded with people and the farce is stronger. Tonight, delinquent young smoker Ben has a surprise when he breaks into Michael's place. Note to househunters: look in the attic to check half the party wall isn't missing.

Meanwhile, Brenda and Dai Davies hold open auditions for coach drivers, using a mop and a child's plastic steering wheel; the glut of corpses at the funeral parlour reaches bursting point; and Big Alan picks up the minicab fare from hell.

The return of Ruth Jones's likeable but increasingly derivative comedy-drama about a single mum in small-town Wales. The house overflows with kids and grandkids while she trains to be a nurse; the ironing is backing up, and she's possibly having "the change". Meanwhile, Patrick Baladi's arrogant, recently divorced lawyer arrives in Pontyberry as the latest big-city-fish-out-of-water/obvious new love interest for Stella. They lock horns in a road-rage incident, ensuring they'll be doing it up against the Sharps built-in wardrobes by episode three.

Could this be third-season lucky-in-love for Welsh valley girl Stella? Ruth Jones is centre stage again in the warm-hearted comedy that returns tonight bathed in an optimistic glow. Stella's got herself a brilliant new job as a nurse and her fledglings are all back in the nest. The only thing that ails our Pontyberry lass is an acute case of singledom. Then again, a divorced lawyer (Patrick Baladi) has just pitched up next door, setting the scene for a spot of romcom sparring.

After a week of such iconic women in their pomp, it is odd to come back into a world that has Big Top - the new sitcom starring the Britain's Got Talent judge Amanda Holden - as part of its cultural furniture. And at 7.30pm on BBC One, this is a big, spendy piece of furniture: like a wardrobe from Heal's, or a new double bed.

Last seen in a dramatic role as she unexpectedly burnt to death in Wild at Heart on ITV1 while trying to save a trapped giraffe, Holden's return is in a no-less baffling set-up: as "Lizzie the Circus Maestro", she runs a circus of what appear to be educationally subnormal friends and relations, in the "north Staffordshire area".

Despite a cast list of putative all-killer no-filler - Tony "Blackadder" Robinson, John "Fast Show" Thomson, Ruth "Hi-di-Hi!" Madoc and, in the first episode, even the handsome Patrick Baladi from The Office - Big Top comes from a school of sitcom acting where technique boils down to saying the words LOUDLY and rolling your eyes - much like Brian Blessed asking for a glass of white wine in the pub, on behalf of a male companion. The fact that there's a "comedy foreigner" who gets his words mixed up, and Thomson has to deliver lines such as "We need to catch those escaped ferrets - without the audience noticing!" only adds to the viewer's liverish sense of doom.

Of course, in the scheme of things, quibbling about the supporting cast here is like kicking up rough about the bread in your s*** sandwich: this is a sitcom starring Amanda Holden. I don't want to be proscriptive about comedy (it's a wide church, it's a deep well, it's often a mystery) but, by and large, it tends to be the preserve of people who can move their faces around a bit. Who knows the reasons behind it, but here Holden has as much facial motility as a seized gearbox. When she bangs home a punchline, it's like watching someone play Tetris at half-speed. I've seen tectonic plates break into a smile faster. She does, however - despite working in a big tent full of sawdust - wear incredibly tiny miniskirts and strappy heels throughout.

At the end of half an hour, a quick burst of data input into the standard-issue Viewer's Calculator reveals that, were the awfulness of Big Top rendered into miles, we could use it as a bridge to the Moon.

Do we really have to speak about Big Top? OK. Big Top is a sitcom about a failing circus, inexplicably starring the wooden, joke-killing Amanda Holden as the scatty, though apparently strong-willed, owner. There's a trapeze artist madly in love with her, Ruth Madoc as a dog-handler, and other rather good actors (Sophie Thompson, John Thomson) flailing with a lame script. Patrick Baladi as a health and safety advisor was ejected at the end of episode one after failing to persuade Holden of the merits of a life of mortgage trackers and convention. Lucky him. Poor us.

Suddenly it's like the 1970s all over again, at least in TV sitcom land. If it's not Miranda gurning to camera and tripping over her giant feet, then it's Amanda Holden in fishnet tights and John Thomson shoving ferrets down his trousers. Which, sadly, is not a scene from a retro fetish club night but what passes for comedy on the fantastically rubbish Big Top.

The Office must have seemed another lifetime to Patrick Baladi when he found himself stranded amid the spit and sawdust as a health and safety officer in a circus sitcom so old-school it made Last Of The Summer Wine look raw and edgy. Assigned to the unenviable task of romancing Holden's dull ring mistress - think school ma'am on a hen night - Baladi was confronted by a box of dog poo. No, seriously, that was the punch line of the best joke of the night.

It was the once mighty Gladys of Hi-de-hi (aka Ruth Madoc) who was proffering the said turd, which made you feel for the talent being frittered away all round the ring. Sophie Thompson is a talented comic actress, but she has an unhappy knack of ending up in total turkeys and she's picked another one here as Thomson's clueless co-clown.

It was as though The League of Gentlemen had never happened. You can squeeze laughs out of clowns without resorting to abusing furry animals - the consistently excellent Modern Family had a great running gag about coulrophobia last week - but Big Top isn't anywhere near that league. The title isn't even a joke: it might have worked if Jordan was playing the lead but as it is it's just plain lazy. Another tent-peg in the coffin of the British sitcom (it's got so bad, I've even started laughing at Miranda. But that's probably the medication).

With Britney Spears and Take That going down the circus route for their recent albums, suddenly the big top's back in vogue. But even if it didn't feature Ruth Madoc as one half of a dog act (the other half being a West Highland terrier called Dave) the ghost of Hi-de-Hi! hovers over this show.

Like holiday camps, a circus - where this is set - is like a sheltered environment where all kinds of eccentrics can live in safety, at arms' length from the outside world. The genial folk at Maestros appear to have been preserved in aspic from some time in the 60s and their biggest star seems to be Amanda Holden in a ringmaster's outfit.

Also on the bill are Tony Robinson as a grumpy caretaker named Erasmus, leotard-wearing Boyco, (Bruce MacKinnon) and John Thomson and Sophie Thompson (not related) as a pair of clowns, Jeff and Helen.

The gentle comedy tonight revolves around some ferrets down a clown's trousers and a visit from a health and safety officer - who's played by a seriously bemused-looking Patrick Baladi.