Gary Bellamy takes the nation's spiritual pulse at a festival, in an episode that may revive memories of 1970s new-age expos such as the Mind, Body and Spirit exhibition. Great to see the wonderful Felix Dexter again in various roles, while highlights include Robert Popper repping for the "Tarvu" faith ("SO easy to join"); Rosie Cavaliero as a Bellamy's Babe; and Lucy Montgomery as a Doctor of Dreams: "A lot of the other stalls are twaddle. I've got a BSc." Brilliantly funny.

It's not The Fast Show and nor does it try to be, but this new series, a spin-off from Radio 4's award-winning spoof phone-in Down The Line, finds Paul Whitehouse and Charlie Higson back together on TV for the first time in a decade, with their old mucker Simon Day also popping up in some of the sketches.

The Bellamy of the title is radio host Gary (Rhys Thomas), who sets off on a trip around the UK, encountering all kinds of bizarre, eccentric characters - many of whom, of course, look naggingly familiar.

They include a celebrity criminal, a 23-stone bed-ridden man, and a pair of posh sisters with decidedly dubious political views. Other top comic talents putting in an appearance include Lucy Montgomery, Rosie Cavaliero and Felix Dexter.

Saints be praised! Sunday night television is saved by the return of Jennifer Saunders's fabulous comedy centring on the activities of the Clatterford Womens' Guild. It's brilliant, gentle stuff, but cut with a sense of anarchy that you'd expect from Saunders's writing. Sue Johnston, Dawn French and Pauline McLynn are all back, with great support from Rosie Cavaliero, David Mitchell and
Maggie Steed, amongst others. This first hour long episode of three has the villagers getting flustered over a planning application - then they find out it might be for Charles Dance...

Written by Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong (Peep Show, The Thick of It) and boasting a pedigree cast, which includes Reece Shearsmith, Darren Boyd and Rosie Cavaliero, the second in this commendable comic endeavour doesn't quite deliver the laughs you might expect. The tale of a houseshare in Victorian London, it is silly and clever and marvellously parodies the conventions, characters and cliches of Victorian fiction. With relatives on deathbeds, frustrated spinsters only occupied with embroidery and ebullient doctors, it provides some smirks but there are no laugh-out-loud moments.

Jam and Jerusalem is distractingly top-heavy with star turns. Appearing in Jennifer Saunders' new sitcom is clearly a prestige gig for an actor, so much so that Hywel Bennett can be recruited for the sole purpose of being killed off and getting the plot moving.

Sue Johnstone stars as grieving widow Sal, forced by bereavement and redundancy into the companionable embrace of the local Women's Institute. Cue a host of comedy cameos from people accustomed to having their own shows.

My inclination is to despise Jam and Jerusalem, like Chelsea FC, for greedily snapping up all the available talent. However, like Chelsea FC, the show is rather successful. Saunders' script is poignant and amusing - there was even a moment of comic genius featuring a false arm - the characters just the right side of eccentric and the starry cast certainly deliver the goods. My favourite performance was Rosie Cavaliero's bereavement counsellor, gently admonishing Sal for processing her feelings of grief in entirely the wrong order.

Two main gripes. First, how come Sal was completely composed and unaffected by her husband's funeral? Second, what is Dawn French doing? Everyone else in the cast has adopted a naturalistic acting style, whereas French has opted for a more panto approach in playing the village idiot.

A brand new game for Friday nights: spot Joanna Lumley. She's absolutely unrecognisable as a bonkers bicycling pensioner in Jennifer Saunders' gentle rural comedy set in Clatterford in Devon - one of those imaginary villages where you can't step out of your cottage without tripping over a dozen or so gurning eccentrics.

But what this lacks in laughs it makes up for in star names. As well as Saunders playing a rich, horsey, friend of Madonna-type, there's Pauline McLynn from Father Ted, Sally Phillips from Smack The Pony, Maggie Steed as the leader of the Women's Guild, a bubble-permed Dawn French as the village idiot, and David Mitchell of That Mitchell And Webb Look.

The piece was actually written for Sue Johnston who plays Sal Vine, the practice nurse whose doctor husband rather thoughtlessly keels over and dies.

Perhaps because of the huge cast, and the way slapstick comedy runs alongside sadness, this first episode feels like a patchwork quilt knocked up from leftover wool.

But some scenes, such as when Sal is visited by a hopeless grief counsellor (the brilliant Rosie Cavaliero) suggest it might be worth giving it a chance to find its feet.