TV: Inside No. 9 - Misdirection, BBC Two

The latest Inside No. 9, "Misdirection", finds Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton delving into the world of magic, secrets and maybe a bit of murder too.

Radio Times review

The English language receives a shakedown as Milton Jones exercises his word play to left-field extremes that make Lewis Carroll seem tame. Sometimes it is a simple description - like calling a church "a huge stone refrigerator" - that sets his mind wandering. But when he starts playing with the sound and meaning of words, the fun really starts.

In this opening episode he decides to launch a wedding business, but for Jones a groom is someone who works with horses, not a husband-to-be. The comic and dramatic support from Tom Goodman-Hill, as Milton's long-suffering flatmate, is invaluable and there are some particularly fine moments in a running theme about the bride looking like Robert De Niro. Their attempts to work De Niro film titles into every conversation with her are superb.

Mark Gatiss among cast of Living with Mother series two

Doctor Who writer joins an all-star cast including Brigit Forsyth, Tom Goodman-Hill and Alison Steadman in the returning Radio 4 comedy.

Phil Whelan's new comedy imagines an exploration in space, the colonisation of a new planet, the making of a new and better society. What makes it funny is that its characters are (and remain) all too recognisably human. So when the leader of the expedition dies on the journey and his second-in-command takes over, there's bound to be a bit of jostling for precedence, especially as Brian, the notional new leader, thinks a nice meeting can sort most things out. He's about to learn a lot. Nicholas Lyndhurst, Vicki Pepperdine and Tom Goodman-Hill star.

We all know that Charlie Brooker is one hell of a columnist and critic, but he's also barely put a foot wrong when it comes to fiction. Sitcom Nathan Barley - which satirised Hoxton media twits - was not, it's fair to say, a critical success, but one of the main complaints was that it satirised something that was already out of date. If anything, it now feels ahead of its time; I for one would love to see what Ashcroft makes of the Twitterati.

Dead Set (zombies in the Big Brother house) fared rather better, and now there's The National Anthem, the first of a three part mini-series of Twilight Zone-inspired sci-fi satires called Black Mirror. This has been hugely lauded, and rightly so - well cast, well written and with a premise to make your stomach turn, it was something genuinely different from the genuinely different mind of Mr Brooker.

There were a few funny lines along the way (I loved the TV news editor telling his graphics guys to "keep it functional, no Peppa Pig") but this was no comedy; indeed it was played dead straight by the excellent cast which included Rory Kinnear, Lindsay Duncan and Tom Goodman-Hill. And the reaction to the bizarre ransom demand on social networks, on TV and in homes around the country was pitched perfectly - outrage, disgust, jokes and, ultimately, morbid fascination.

If anything, it was all too real for 45 minutes to carry off the "denouement", shall we call it. Every other element of this drama was so realistic that for the PM to actually go through with it for the sake of public opinion...? It was a bit too much to take, in a couple of senses. But in the main, The National Anthem is to be applauded: brave, well-made, and it made its point clearly, concisely and very creatively.

Whilst the rest of Port Wenn gears up for the village fun run, the doc remains as curmudgeonly as ever ("sprains, tendonitis, dehydration, dislodged testicles, cardiac arrest, sounds like a lot of fun"). The event sparks culinary rivalry between local restaurant owners Bert (Ian McNeice) and Mark (Tom Goodman-Hill). Both battle it out to provide bargain meals for spectators. Meanwhile Louisa (Caroline Catz) gets a surprise visit from an unwelcome guest. Her hippyish mother Eleanor (Louise Jameson) turns up at the surgery and announces she's staying.

The start of the new series of this sitcom is neatly timed, considering the recent announcement of lottery funding for the restoration of part of Bletchley Park, the epicentre of Allied decoding efforts during the Second World War. In the series, which is set at the complex during the war, the feuding among the code breakers is rampant. Archie (Tom Goodman-Hill), a revolutionary socialist, clashes with Charles (Robert Bathurst) over a long-held grudge, while the young maths prodigy Gordon (Fergus Craig) attempts to keep the peace.

For this particular instalment, Jones found himself casing the catwalk as a professional photographer at a Milan fashion shoot. Despite being pretty lousy at the job - his only relevant experience was taking pictures of animals - he still ended up jetting off to South America to snap an eccentric and often angry Miss Venezuela.

To attempt to explain what happened next would be far too ambitious, let's just say that Jones' adventure featured encounters with Big Foot and a tribe of eco terrorists, and that was after he discovered what going for a Brazilian really meant.

The joy of the programme was in the writing, particularly the running gags, and the way it was performed by Jones and the cast, which included Tom Goodman-Hill, Dan Tetsell, Ingrid Oliver and Ben Willbond.

Stay tuned for the latest six-part series of Tom Collinson's slightly surreal sitcom that finds our hero, Dave (Reece Shearsmith) still living in the self-storage container of the title after the break-up of his marriage. Here he considers the great conundrum we call life in the company of, in particular, the borderline psychotic Geoff (Mark Heap) and the sensitive and cultivated security guard Ron (Tom Goodman-Hill). This much is as before. What's new for the first episode of this new series is that Dave's sister has moved into the same storage building as Dave after a series of rows with her husband. Which raises the question: given the current downturn in the economy, could storage containers be the new bijou semi?