Less a comedy, more an extended panic attack, Lee Mack's new sitcom doesn't make for relaxing viewing. This week, a journalist is following Kate around in order to write a lifestyle piece. But what could go wrong when the hack runs into her ex across the road? Not unpredictably, everything.

Why Semi-Detached is the most stressful TV show of 2020

Hallucinatory hummus! Hostages! Hyperventilation! Lee Mack's latest series is a masterclass in chaotic comedy, with a multitude of disasters unfolding in real time.

BBC2's comedy evening is a hit-and-miss affair, but it's good that the Beeb is now producing enough new sitcoms and sketch shows - after a long barren patch - to stage a cavalcade like this.

Diane Morgan's slack-faced creation Mandy kicked it off with a couple of daft stories - one about a job at a banana factory, and one that pitted her in a line-dancing marathon contest against arch-enemy Maxine Peake.

Call me easily pleased, but I was weeping with laughter at the sight of a woman with a beehive and a fag in her mouth, splatting tarantulas on a conveyor belt of imported fruit.

I'm laughing less at Semi-Detached. It started well but I'm beginning to worry that Lee Mack - shorn of his one-liners - is a painfully depleted sight. He needs to be much more than just a character that things happen to.

Matt Berry rounded the evening off with Squeamish About.... It was funny for the first five minutes. Less would be more.

The gimmick of this Lee Mack sitcom is that events unfold in real time, which in practice means each episode sees his stressed wedding DJ Stuart absolutely dog-piled by humiliations. Tonight, all Stu wants to do is reclaim his iPad, triggering a blackly comic and often profane cascade of disaster.

Semi-Detached review

Lee Mack as a wedding DJ having a midlife crisis? It sounds naff, but it's like Birdman - if Birdman were set in a cream sitting room.

TV review: Semi-Detached, BBC Two

It's interesting that this is on BBC Two because it's really only a whisker away from being a mainstream BBC One sitcom.

Semi-Detached with Lee Mack review

The gimmick of Lee Mack's new sitcom is that all the action happens in real time - though whether audiences would appreciate, or even notice, the restriction that writers David Crow and Oliver Maltman have imposed on themselves remains to be seen.

Semi-Detached review

In some respects, this BBC sitcom channels elements of the sadcom - but the moments aren't frequent or long enough to actually make us care.

Semi-Detached, episode 1, review

Lee Mack's suburban sadsack makes for solid sitcom fare.