The Job Lot is [compared to fellow ITV sitcom Vicious] a gentler, more deadpan prospect from three first-time writers, following the travails of the employees and clients of a Midlands job centre. Sarah Hadland and Russell Tovey do their best in the leads, but it's a familiar premise lacking in one-liners. It does show occasional promise, especially during one protracted sequence unravelling the absurd red tape apparently wrapped around the jobseeking process. But it's good-natured and well performed, if light on laughs.

Sarah Hadland (Miranda's Stevie) and Russell Tovey head up the second of tonight's ITV sitcom double-bill. It's Trollied relocated to a job centre, with manager Trish and pet underling Karl tackling the trials and tribulations of the poor souls stuck on both sides of the counter. Frustrated Karl badly wants out - until a gorgeous temp (Emma Rigby) shows up. While over at front desk, newly-redundant job-seeker Sunil (Teachers' Navin Chowdhry) can't get past miserable jobsworth Angela (Jo Enright).

A comedy set in a job centre in the Midlands - doesn't exactly sound like a bundle of laughs, does it? And while the script doesn't aim to pump out one-liners like Vicious, The Job Lot has sharply observed characters played by a classy ensemble cast. Among them are Sarah Hadland (Stevie from Miranda) as neurotic manager Trish; Russell Tovey as daydreamer Karl, so fed up with his dead-end job he'd almost rather join the dole queue; and Jo Enright as Angela, the Rosemary West of careers advisers.

The shadow of The Office looms over this new sitcom, set in Brownall Job Centre in the West Midlands, and it largely delivers, thanks to a cracking script and some winning performances. Brittle, nervy Trish (Miranda star Sarah Hadland) runs the office, aided by frustrated graduate Karl (Russell Tovey), and the marvellously dour Angela (Life's Too Short's Jo Enright), among the regular staff and jobseekers. This week sees a display of petty bureaucracy from Angela, while Karl uses his degree in an ill-judged manner.

I feel ever so sorry for ITV's second new sitcom of the night for having to follow a tough act like Vicious... The Job Lot, set in a job centre don'tcha know, can't help but pale in comparison to the savage brilliance of Ian McKellen and Co.

And that's a shame because while it's not going to win any prizes for originality (League Of Gentlemen's job-seeker sketches set the bar pretty high on that score), it's a perfectly respectable addition to the clutch of office-based sitcoms.

Plus it's from Big Talk, the company that gave us Spaced, Black Books, Rev, Friday Night Dinner and Him & Her, so it knows about sitcoms.

Sarah Hadland, Russell Tovey, Martin Marquez and Emma Rigby are among the staff turning the unemployed into the funemployed, with varying degrees of success.

But the biggest surprise of the night must be actress Sophie McShera being cast as a job-seeker who's turned being work-shy into a something of a full-time career. It's Downton's Daisy Mason as you've never seen her before.

In tonight's highly strung, celeb-sprinkled outing, Miranda realises she doesn't love homely Mike, and "Queen of Pushy" Penny soon finds a way to make her dinner party the talk of the tennis club.

The episode is both hysterical and maddening, its plot riven with sitcom complication, but the outcome will make you wish the finale had followed on immediately afterwards. A word of praise for Sarah Hadland as Miranda's sparky pal Stevie, who always keeps the laughs ticking over with a sulky strut here and a beautifully tortured metaphor there. And for Dominic Coleman as a total stranger who somehow becomes entangled in every plot twist.

Births, Deaths and Marriages is a new sitcom written by and starring David Schneider as Malcolm Fox, a by-the-book and seemingly dull registrar.

The registry office has recently taken on a new manager from the local car parking department called Lorna (Sarah Hadland), who has some odd ideas on increasing profit, such as converting the stationary cupboard into a reception room, organising weddings at theme parks, and limiting other weddings to ten minutes in length.

There are some strong moments in Births, Deaths and Marriages. For example, Malcolm having to officiate a wedding taking place on a roller coast, despite his crippling vertigo - and Schneider can certainly perform well - but I'm unsure about the quality of material.

I can't help but think that the wedding vows are there purely to take up space on the script. Also, the show follows the gag about disabled people not having a leg to stand on. A bit old hat, don't you think?

New comedy, by and starring David Schneider, set in that crossroad of British experience, the registry office. Schneider plays Malcolm, a Chief Registrar of the old school, stickler for rules and regulations, unmarried. Sent in to work beside him and bring the office up to date is Lorna (Sarah Hadland). She's a divorcee with bright ideas, like how to make weddings make profits. How far she'll get with the workforce, spiky Mary (Sally Bretton), geeky Luke (Russell Tovey) and dizzy but sympathetic Anita (Sandy McDade) is anyone's guess.

Sarah Hadland: I watch The Killing all night

Sarah Hadland made it big in Miranda and is now starring in The Bleak Old Shop Of Stuff - here she tells Metro about her favourite TV programmes, from Damages to The Killing.

Behind those stick-on whiskers, Robert Webb's innocent, ­dim-witted face has got "gullible sucker" written all over it.

And, as the Dickensian spoof returns, Bleak Old Shop proprietor Jedrington Secret-Past and his family are about to be catapulted into a world of untold wealth thanks to a business opportunity that sounds almost too good to be true.

While last year's Christmas special was full of lots of soft, wordy humour that showed off its radio roots, the first of this ­new BBC2 three-parter takes a more ­straightforward route to the viewers' funny bone.

And if you don't laugh at The Apprentice and Tesco gags then there's really ­something wrong with you. Katherine Parkinson is wonderful as Jedrington's wife Conceptiva, who is being taunted (Lady Dedlock-style) about her very own secret past.

Her insistence on doing everything without any help from her new servants is a lovely detail, while Waterloo Road's Sarah Hadland pops up, quite literally tonight, as a very different kind of teacher to what we've seen before.

This sitcom may represent the height of ­silliness, but it's also very clever.