Some series are about the ­characters' struggle to achieve something. Great Night Out, on the other hand, is about four blokes desperate to maintain the status quo for as long as possible.

They really don't like change, which is why in their mid-30s they're still best mates and drink in the same pub. You can be pretty confident that in another 30 years they'll still be there at the Admiral Nelson, slightly fatter, balder, but still feeling like they're 15.

This week they're temporarily jolted out of their comfortable little ruts when an old schoolmate Scott (guest star Paul Nicholls) arrives with some threatening ­opinions about male grooming and proper orange juice after tasting life beyond Stockport. Glyn's little head is turned to the extent that he even buys a pair of espadrilles. This will never do.

Meanwhile, Hodge is thrown into panic when wife Kath decides she wants a baby, but best of all Beggsy discovers he has an admirer in Colleen's weirdo flatmate Bev.

We haven't seen much of Isy Suttie, who plays Bev, before now but her aggressive pursuit of Beggsy tonight - armed and ready with cupcakes - is one of the highlights of the whole series.

ITV's Stockport-set comedy continues to rattle along nicely. Yes, it feels old-fashioned for a series about 30-somethings and yes, the storylines move with the predictability of Swiss railways. But there's an oomph to it, a likeability that comes partly from the writers' unashamed love of the comic mishap (this week, a flooded living room and the world's most embarrassing pub quiz) and partly from a cast who give the characters plenty of heart under the daftness.

Scene of the night must be the moment where Daz's bathroom comes flooding through his lounge ceiling while he's enjoying fish and chips - a tour de force. But the meat of the plot comes when Glyn bumps into an old schoolfriend (guest star Paul Nicholls) who's done well for himself and become a bit flash. He drinks latte. He waxes. But why is he so keen to befriend gormless Glyn?

Meanwhile, Kath suggests that she and Hodge try for a baby, an idea that leaves Hodge struggling to, as it were, keep up.

Four episodes in, and the Stockport-set comedy is still struggling to catch fire - but there are enough flickering signs of life to merit a look. Hodge (Lee Boardman) gets the jitters when his wife Kath (Rebekah Staton) suggests starting a family, not helped when his plumbing results in disaster at Daz's (Stephen Walters) house. Meanwhile, Beggsy (Will Ash) isn't happy about being used as bait for Colleen's (Naomi Bentley) peculiar flatmate Bev (Isy Suttie); and an old schoolmate (Paul Nicholls) of Glyn's attempts to renew their acquaintance.

A show that seems to have been pitched as Cold Feet for Oasis fans, Great Night Out is a comedy-drama that fails to deliver on both of those promises. For sure, there are some good people in it (Craig Parkinson in particular). Even the premise (four mid-30s lads from Stockport meet weekly to mull over their dilemmas) is not an unappealing one, but the unfunny stag night-style plot japes that surround them makes it all feel bogus. This week, Hodge votes with his feet, so to speak, when Kath suggests they "make a baby".

Tonight it's nervous Glyn (Craig Parkinson) at the centre of the action in this genial Stockport lads comedy drama. It's his birthday and he's having a fancy-dress bash at the local pub - but the night's success hangs on a certain nurse turning up and even that might not work unless he can get his coulrophobia under control. That's fear of clowns to you and me. We're with him on that one.

Sweet and funny one minute, laboured and creaky the next - we're going to have to get used to Great Night Out's ups and downs. But at least the performances are consistently good, particularly Craig Parkinson as self-doubting Glyn, who this week has a birthday party and would love the beautiful Julie (Christine Bottomley - simultaneously playing a dodgy copper on Silent Witness) to be there.

Some people might simply ask her, but not Glyn. He goes the long route and, because she's a nurse, pretends he's having chest pains. Which, like everything in this series, goes horribly wrong for him, via a fear of clowns and some customised chili con carne.

Meanwhile, Beggsy's ex-wife Mandy (Lucy Gaskell) - the one who left him to go and live with a new man in Australia - is back in town. So obviously
he's playing it verrrry cool.

The first lads' night out was a bit hit-and-miss in the pacing department but this comedy drama hits its stride tonight, with the chaps tapping their compassionate side when Daz gets into another spot of bother with girlfriend Colleen. Before you know it, they're all in deep water when their efforts to jolly up their mate turns round and bites them in the proverbial. Lee Boardman, William Ash, Craig Parkinson and Stephen Walters star.

This is more like it. After a shaky, tenuous, trying-a-bit-too-hard start last week, the Stockport comedy about a bunch of hapless lads hits its stride tonight. Suddenly, the likeable, daft ensemble comes into its own. There's a real collective chemistry between the four male leads: when they wind each other up or get competitive about tiny things, we can believe they've been mates since for ever. The reaction tonight when Hodge (Lee Boardman - milking every comic drop from his lines) turns up for a night's drinking in a loud yellow cardigan foisted on him by his wife feels spot on. And there are proper, splutteringly funny moments as the evening degenerates via alcohol, a string of sausages and Glyn's new boss Mad Tony. Once again Hodge's well-meaning but hopeless instincts land him in his wife's bad books. She's got a whole library.

For the first time in two years, Glyn has got a job. It may involve running errands for the local gangster, but the lads have to celebrate this occasion. Cue a saccharine slow-motion shot of the boys laughing and jumping on each other en route to the pub, before hunkering down for a series of cheap gags and bad plans. The plot is paper thin, so you can see each 'twist' coming a mile off. What else could you get by putting a drunkard with a guard dog other than a bite on the bum? And where do meat raffles lead you? To dick jokes, of course. Trying to get your mad boss's wasted girlfriend home safely? Well, that's just asking for trouble. This is humour at its basest, centered in a place where men get mercilessly teased for wearing anything but jeans and T-shirts, the kids are all snide little grifters and the women are either tarts or plain Janes. We can't imagine you'll ever want to go back.

There's been room for a while in the schedules for a show that reflects the relentless mickey-taking that bonds groups of young males, and this is it. Set in Stockport, amid the world of pub outings, iffy jobs and the faintest hint of recession, it's cheery, cosy stuff, driven by a frantic banjo soundtrack and the assurance of Ricky Tomlinson as the pub landlord. Tonight, our four lads plan a night out, but it's Hodge who literally draws the short straw after a drink-spiking caper goes wrong, forcing him to stand in as chauffeur to a local hardman's drunken girlfriend.