Robert Webb

It's been a busy 2009 for David Mitchell and Robert Webb, what with their sketch show, countless panel games and, perhaps most memorably, cross-dressed Webb prancing his way to victory on the Comic Relief celebrity talent contest Let's Dance. Now the duo return as stars of this ever-improving sitcom. The sixth series finds the hapless flatmates still in denial about one of them fathering Sophie's baby. Mark (Mitchell) wangles Jez (Webb) a job and continues his pursuit of IT girl-geek Dobby. Naturally, his dreams are soon scuppered - this time, by a routine fire drill.

David Mitchell and Robert Webb return for the sixth series of their sitcom. It continues to follow the life and times of the anorak and the wastrel, although by now the characters are getting longer in the tooth. The credit crunch has hit Croydon, the twentysomethings have turned into thirtysomethings, fatherhood looms on the horizon and the anorak celebrates his promotion at work by splashing out on a boiler. Unlike a classic comedy that appeals to all ages, Peep Show targets a peer group who identify with the preoccupations and insecurities of the characters expressed through internal monologues. "[Its success] has a lot to do with being honest about what your life is like and the reality of living in London," says Mitchell.

Good on Channel 4 for keeping faith with Peep Show, despite viewing figures so small they can barely be seen with the naked eye. Now entering a sixth series, socially inept and emotionally stunted flatmates Mark and Jeremy (David Mitchell and Robert Webb) are trying not to think about the inescapable fact that one of them is the father of pregnant Sophie's baby. Wails Mark, "The baby is too big. You can't look at it. It's like the sun." It's up to the decrepit, drug-addled Super Hans (Matt King), who looks increasingly like a monster in a German Expressionist film, to keep the boys from one another's throats. But Mark's world turns to ashes when there's a fire drill at his office and the egregious Johnson (Paterson Joseph) makes an announcement in the car park. If you know little of Peep Show, then probably nothing short of the offer of a free cruise will persuade you to watch it. If you love it, rest assured, age has not wearied writers Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong's perfect little blackly comic gem.

Following in the footsteps of Kevin Bishop's cringe-fest, Peep Show is back to remind us (and Channel 4) what TV comedy is all about. With Mark and Jez still co-habiting in Croydon and drowning in each other's apathy, it's clear not much has changed (and of course we wouldn't want it any other way). Mark gets promoted and celebrates by getting a new boiler; and also gets Jez a job at his office, providing a platform for a rather brilliant quote regarding a work / porn incident. One of these idiots might be the father of Sophie's baby (anyone else secretly hoping it's Super Hans?). Recently Robert Webb told us that the thing that gets shouted at him most is "Oi, Peep Show". He sighed. But everyone, including him, knows this is the best thing they've ever done by a country mile. Lovely.

Winning Losers

Paternity muddles, brainwashing cults and a failure to find 'the one': things didn't work out as planned for Mark and Jez in the last series of Peep Show. So what fresh humiliation awaits this time? Grace Dent joins them on set.

David Mitchell and Robert Webb on Peep Show: interview

The writing duo behind Channel 4's popular cult sitcom Peep Show talk about the genesis of their Bafta award-winning show.

Peep Show - They're still worth spying on

Six series on and Mark and Jeremy are the same old losers, living in one another's pockets. That's the secret of Peep Show's success, David Mitchell and Robert Webb tell James Rampton.

Interview: David Mitchell, Robert Webb ('Peep Show')

With a pair of CVs covering the likes of Peep Show, Magicians and That Mitchell And Webb Look, David Mitchell and Robert Webb have officially cemented themselves as comedy connoisseurs. But with Peep Show series six now upon us - and with a seventh already on the way - are they getting tired of Mark and Jez? And how much longer can the show go on? We caught up with the chaps themselves to find out.

How vividly we remember when and where we hear special things on the radio, staying in a car to hear the end of a football match, being in a garden and braving hay fever not to miss a word of a play. Six Augusts ago I remember walking round the Italian Garden in Hyde Park, listening to the very first episode of That Mitchell and Webb Sound and laughing so much my glasses steamed up and I couldn't see the fountains.

They were just starting off in Channel 4's Peep Show then but had been around on the comedy scene long enough to have established their act and attracted the BBC. Radio's tiny cheques (but careful fostering) helped them to a BBC TV series. As with Dead Ringers, however, radio fans who followed them found the same jokes but with pictures, slower, still funny but not exactly fresh. Last Tuesday evening they began their fourth Radio 4 series and it was simply brilliant.

Twelve sketches, written by an encyclopaedic list of writers, lit up the air. Caesar, with a spin doctor. The iReckon, a device to enjoy the thoughts you want in the order that suits you. A reprimand to employees for using their extraterrestrial portal as a dustbin ("What must the aliens think of us?"). A parody of an interview where there's nothing to say but they won't be let go until they say what the producer wants. Parodies of TV ads and BBC formats. A look forward to 2040 and Sky BBC12. Their rapport with the studio audience is remarkable, their supporting cast is first-rate. Will I mind if all these jokes turn up again on television? Not really. If it were the other way round, TV first, I would.

Peep Show? Brilliant. David Mitchell on any of the roughly 795 radio and TV panel games he's adorned with his presence? National treasure-in-waiting. But if his reputation rested on his TV sketch shows with Robert Webb, the two of them might well be known as the Anna Kournikovas of comedy: famous, but useless at the thing they're famous for.

The problem with the sketches in That Mitchell and Webb Sound (which the lads mostly write), as opposed to Peep Show (which they mostly don't) is that they're clever but not very funny, a slight handicap for a comedy programme. Each situation is replete with comic possibilities and progresses with savage twists of absurdity. It should be drop-dead hilarious. It's the kind of thing, though, you watch with an expectant grin - but no belly laughs.

So I listened to the new series of the radio version with some trepidation, but although not everything was a palpable hit, there was enough to be going on with. Some of the ideas were spot-on, such as the orthopaedic suppliers with an inter-dimensional portal on the shop floor ("gentlemen, the stargate is not a bin"), or the iReckon, Apple's new gadget ("I can download all my thoughts from the internet!"). And Caesar being coached in referring to himself in the third person was pure The Two Ronnies.