Sam Wollaston

That Stewart Lee, off Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle (BBC2), is an angry man. He's an angry man, that Stewart Lee, off Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle. On BBC2. And he says thing over and over again, getting angrier and angrier, shouting louder and louder. He says them over again, getting angrier and angrier. Stewart Lee, off Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle. On BBC2. He is clever and funny, but everything else and everyone else (especially people who are more successful than him) is stupid and silly. And that makes him very angry. Stewart Lee, off Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle. On BBC2.

Sam Wollaston Review

I'm going to give it another go. And that's because some of these guys' (they are all blokes, and probably always will be) ideas are actually pretty funny. Mark and his hood for example. He's hilarious, much funnier than either of the two professionals.

Sam Wollaston Review

A sketch show by G&S stars Mathew Horne and James Corden was never really going to be my thing. But I wasn't prepared for quite how awful it was.

FM is a new sitcom, with the same kind of vibe as The IT Crowd - we're in the workplace, the stars are a woman and two blokes, one of whom is funny Irishman Chris O'Dowd. OK, so the "sit" is different. FM takes place at an indie radio station (it's FM as in frequency modulation). But the "com" is similar - puns and witticisms, misunderstandings, awkward situations. Old-school then, to be polite. Or lame, if you prefer.

The longest-running gag is that O'Dowd somehow gets himself a slot as a proper DJ in a club, even though he doesn't know how to do it - couldn't even mix a metaphor. So he cheats, gets a CD of mixes off a kid (a black character who wears a baseball cap back to front and says "bro" a lot, slightly embarrassingly), and just pretends to be playing vinyl and scratching and doing all that. Guess what, the CD gets stuck (as it was always going to), and he's made to look like an idiot. Do you get it?

There is the odd glimmer of hope. I woke up at one uncharacteristically shocking - and uncharacteristically funny - line. It's too rude to repeat here, but if you saw it you'll know the one I mean (yup, the one about mother-loving). And it has walk-on (kinda) celebrities - in this one, Justin Hawkins from the Darkness, the Guillemots, and Marianne Faithfull in the distance. Celebrities can be funny. We, the jury, will stay out for one more episode, then. But I'm not over-hopeful. It's a brave thing to set a sitcom in a radio station. The last one I can think of is Frasier. No pressure, then.

Jonathan Creek is reborn, after a few years away. He's looking into a series of disappearances in the attic of a big old country pile. More than the murders, though, it's about boobs. Or it certainly looks that way from where I'm sitting. They're everywhere. All the women in the show - Creek's sidekick, her mate, the killer's wife, the porn star in the strange subplot - are wearing virtually northing, and the camera never misses the opportunity to zoom in on a plunging top or a heaving chest. Oops, one of the porn star's bursts; they weren't real, it turns out. But there are still plenty more around to focus on.

To be honest I'm finding it hard to complain about ... but no, I must, this is the Guardian, for heaven's sake. It's gratuitous, all these scantily clad women about the place, simply for the titillation of the viewer. Soft porn masquerading as murder mystery. Where's Benny Hill? Probably in that bath...

Prank-call show Fonejacker has to be the funniest thing on the telly right now. I like the Iraqi man wanting to join the British Army. The recruitment officer is very helpful: he even thinks that Iraq may well be a Commonwealth country.

What, because you occupy it now? says the Iraqi. Erm, we don't occupy it now ... Well, I suppose ... can't really get into all that with you, sir.

It makes you squirm like an eel. But cringing is the new laughing - no, not new, it has been since Ali G, and Ricky Gervais. And this is so beautifully performed - by one man: Kayvan Novak.

Am I the only person in the world who doesn't love Little Britain? The observations are quite nice, but I don't think Lucas and Walliams are great writers or great performers - a shame, given that they are our most successful comedy writing and performing double act. Each sketch is one idea dragged out tediously to the point of embarrassment. I can honestly say I didn't laugh once in this one, didn't even smile. I don't even find it offensive. Just boring and irritating. Moving it all to America doesn't change anything.

Massive is another silly new sitcom with Johnny Vegas. He's moved from Benidorm to Manchester, but the level of comedy hasn't changed much - all gentle roguishness, mice, too much Strongbow, falling over and exaggerated facial expressions. There's an element of X Factor about it: we're setting up a new record label, and there's a battle-of-the-bands contest to get the operation up and running. But there's much more drama in the real X Factor, and more humour. The best thing in this is a pea-soup coloured Austin Allegro. Nice wheels.

Messrs Enfield and Whitehouse are back with their sketch show. There's not much new here; the jokes are mostly about people saying things you wouldn't expect them to (builders discussing the merits of Brit Art, etc) and funny foreigners, speaking funny. And yet I laughed. Not all the time - this is a sketch show, so it is hit-and-miss by definition. But when I did laugh, I laughed quite a lot. Maybe the old ones are the best.

The Cup tries hard to be The Office of the football field, using the same makey-uppy documentary device. Nothing wrong with that - it's a good way of getting to know characters quickly without forcing plot lines, although here it doesn't feel as fresh as when Ricky Gervais was doing it. And there are some decent performances, although Steve Edge as main man Terry stands out a bit too far perhaps. His character, a super-competitive footballing dad, is not just in your face, he's rammed right down your throat. Subtle this isn't, and that's the problem.