Victor Lewis-Smith

Calf shone when he first appeared on The Saturday Zoo (admittedly that wasn't hard - even Pickety Witch would have brought the house down on that show) but, unlike Harry Enfield's characters - which are often amusing on their first outing, but seldom evolve - Calf proved that Coogan's creations are alive, and capable of interaction and development.

Evans's act worked best when he forgot about being a smart-arsed Channel 4 performer, and fell back on some ancient and much-loved jokes - "people are so old in Bournemouth, all the shop windows are bifocal" - but his ITV penchant for "-ist" humour sat uneasily with his PC Channel 4 remit. After telling us that the French stink, his plea of "that was a bit racist" was about as convincing as Melvyn Bragg accepting the "Mr Sinex 1993" award.

Have I Got News is consistently the funniest British programme on television, and probably the one I'd take to my desert island. Much of the praise must go to its producer, Harry Thompson, and to Hat Trick Productions, whose unerring knack for comedy leaves its rivals in the shade.

Like most Channel X productions, Sean's Show is a hangover from the Eighties, in this case a watered-down version of the brilliantly original It's Garry Shandling's Show. Shandling has since moved forward into the Nineties with the equally innovative Larry Sanders Show, but its imitators remain, like hermit crabs taking up residence in discarded shells that they could never construct themselves. It's easy to imitate a format. Unfortunately, it's not so easy to make that imitation work.

But for really thorough bottom-of-the-barrel-scraping, you need look no further than Beadle's About (LWT, Friday) with its low-budget set, its no-budget titles, and a sig tune so crass that even Chas 'n' Dave would consider it a touch plebeian.

Few sitcoms sustain their initial wit and sharpness beyond two or three series, but sci-fi comedy Red Dwarf - back on BBC2 for its sixth run - defies the ravages of time with the same non-chalance displayed last night by its chief slob-in-space Lister (Craig Charles).

David Baddiel and Rob Newman may sport the least convincing Cockney accents since the glorious days of Dick Van Dyke, but their loyal middle-class student audience are hardly likely to know that.

Paul Merton - The Series is extraordinary from the opening moments. Eleanor Rigby-like strings pound away melancholically in a minor key, with a sombreness rarely encountered in TV comedy. [...] But these monologues are far more than a string of disconnected jokes. Each one possesses a strange distorted logic of its own, a subtle twist that transforms a simple idea into something utterly baffling, the verbal equivalent of a Mobius strip.

Similarly, I suspect it's only a matter of time before Seamus Cassidy, Channel 4's commissioning editor for comedy, holds a press conference to admit that he is, in fact, an ex bingo-caller who knows nothing about comedy. Certainly, the number of genuinely amusing programmes he's commissioned over the past four years can be counted on the fingers of a mitten. What else could explain the lamentable standard of his department's output, which reached a new nadir last night with Mr. Don and Mr. George (C4)?

When a performer utters the ellipsis "laygennlemen" you know you've strayed into lumpen territory, but Rock With Laughter (BBC1) takes you further, deep into previously uncharted regions of imbecility. Other "artists" have a discreet cross, or mark, on which to stand, but Mr Davro clearly requires something less subtle - a 12-foot circle with his name emblazoned across it - from which to announce that the theme of the show was Saturday Night.