We Need Answers is now in its second series. This is an excruciatingly student-y comedy quiz hosted by Mark Watson, Tim Key and Alex Horne, which was transferred to television after proving a hit at the Edinburgh Fringe. Two celebrities (in this week's case, Vanessa Feltz and The Inbetweeners' Simon Bird) are quizzed on themed questions originally sent by members of the public to the text message answering service. Watson is the host and link to the audience, Key is the quizmaster (who is spat out into the studio on a railed leather armchair through a concealed door), and Horne provides supportive music cues, sound effects, action-replays, and homespun graphics from a laptop.

It's incredibly cheap, very silly, and not particularly funny. I suspect that by crossing over into my 30s, this kind of comedy has stopped looking hilariously anarchic and intellectual-but-daft, to just become annoying and puerile. That said, the trio behind it are aged 29-33, so maybe it's just me who's stonily bored by Shooting Stars-esque absurdity, particularly when it's in the guise of a cheapo '70s series. We Need Answers ran at the Fringe for two successful years, but I'm guessing it helps if you're a half-drunk festivalgoer attending the show in a live format. On television, it's another matter. There's a distance that Watson, Key and Horne can't bridge.

We get answers from the stars of We Need Answers

Tim Key, Mark Watson and Alex Horne from TV's silliest quiz face the sheer randomness of Wikipedia.

This sketch show didn't attract much attention on its first run earlier this year, but is worth revisiting. Yes, it's frightfully Footlights-y and the quiet, deadpan delivery isn't new, but Tim Key, Stefan Golaszewski, Lloyd Woolf and Tom Basden take just enough risks to set themselves apart. There's a running longform sketch where they all live absurdly together in a caravan, while the highlight of each episode tends to be a wilfully random, spectacularly insulting animation about celebrities' private lives. From these mild surprises come laughs.

Back when this ramshackle quiz was a bonkers night out at the Edinburgh Festival, the site of deadpan comic Tim Key (nearly) falling off his track-rolling quizmaster chair routinely had us in stitches. Now, said quiz, which asks ludicrous questions then asks text-messaging service AQA to answer them, has made the jump to TV. Mark Watson is the host and tonight's baffled guests are Julia Bradbury and Red Dwarf's Robert Llewellyn.

Individually, Tom Basden, Stefan Golaszewski, Tim Key and Lloyd Woolf have caused quite a stir on the live comedy circuit, and their shared love of deadpan, absurd and irreverent humour shines out in this inventive, enjoyable and subtle sketch show. Particularly pertinent highlights include a middle-class game of Russian roulette where adhering to the rules is paramount, and a job seeker whose only aim is to become Mick Hucknall's PA.

Sketch shows rarely justify the sum of their parts, but there is sometimes an exception. Adapted from the Radio 4 show, the cowards in question are comedians Tim Key, Tom Basden, Stefan Golaszewski and Lloyd Woolf and their act works because the sketches are a blend of the subtle, imaginative and absurd. Scenarios include an excruciatingly dark Russian-roulette dinner-party game.

Tom Basden, Stefan Golaszewski, Tim Key and Lloyd Woolf's delightful sketch show returns to Radio 4 for a second series.

Theirs is a performance that likes to keep it real - instead of larger-than-life characters, they bring out the comedy in the everyday. Not that their screations are average Joes: in one sketch Mr Sneeze comes to blows with the other Mr Men, while in another, Harrison Ford desperately kowtows to a casting director.

It's about left-field observations rather than catchphrases, and makes for a refreshing, rib-tickling change.

We Need Answers Edinburgh Interview

One of the newer comedy collectives consists of core members Mark Watson, Alex Horne and Tim Key. The three friends have been working together on projects since 2001 and last year premiered the Fringe's first interactive quiz show.

Mark Watson is not a comedian who is short of ambition. In 2006 he did a stand-up show in which he wrote a novel with his audience. Then last year came his methodical deconstruction of the Seven Deadly Sins. His new series picks up where he left off, only with the moral lever now switched to the virtues. This week that makes for a blissfully madcap journey around the concept of courage. Extremely silly songs about being brave (from poet Tim Key) complete the picture, my favourite of which is 'ignore peer pressure - unless you're a structural engineer who is building a pier, in which case don't put lives at risk.'

We're circling Buddha of Suburbia territory with this new sitcom by Suk Pannu, about Bharat, a suburban guru (Vincent Ebrahim), his disciple Henry (Tim Key) and Mrs Sidhu (Shelley King), his termagant receptionist. Bharat's advice is much sought after but what he advises (times of weddings etc) may depend on what's on TV that afternoon. Yet despite his devotion to Quincy, he wants the younger generation to take him seriously.