Preview: Tracy Ullman's Show series 2

This week sees the return of Tracy Ullman's Show to BBC One, with the first episode airing on Friday 3rd February at 9:30pm. As with the first series, a bevy of TVO regulars are involved: this time around Dan Skinner, Tracy Ann Oberman, Lucy Montgomery and Laurence Rickard are part of the impressive ensemble cast. But is the end result worth a look? TVO editor Paul Holmes took a sneaky peek...

TV preview: Tracey Ullman's Show, BBC1

By their supporting cast shalt thou know them. Or something. The first episode of the second series of Tracey Ullman's return to British sketch show comedy features an enviable cast list of contemporary comedians and actors.

This may be the end of the current series of Ullman's refreshingly cliche-free sketch comedy, but lessons refuse to be learned for the varied personas she inhabits. Merseyside money-magnet Pam Garrity continues to singlehandedly fuel George Osborne's northern powerhouse, Dame Judi Dench wreaks smartphone-based havoc on a double-decker, while the unfortunately named Isis Model Agency continues to raise alarm among potential catwalk strutters. A second series has already been commissioned.

Radio Times review

It's Carole Middleton's turn with Prince George today and the heir to the throne is a lot more of a handful than he was with Granny Camilla in previous episodes.

Poor Carole can't help curtseying to her grandson in another pitch-perfect impersonation from the wonderful Trace. Her Dame Maggie Smith is also on form, as the acting grand dame pitches for a part in a "muscle car franchise...Peevish Max...one of those".

But once again a misfire skit satirising Ripper-style street tours highlights the familiar sketch show malaise when the supporting material fails to match up to the peerless set pieces. It's a drag, even when Tracey Ullman is doing the dragging.

Tracey Ullman's return has received mixed notices from critics, with some criticising her sketch show as feeling dated. Maybe, but it's not without the occasional inspired moment, notably her on-point impression of a gossipy Angela Merkel.

Radio Times review

Tracey Ullman's sublime Angela Merkel goes full Eurovision in a wonderful homage to Germany's 1982 winner (who can forget Nicole's Ein bißchen Frieden - which translates as A Little Peace). But this instalment seems largely designed to give her other characters a chance in the spotlight.

There's more from the mildly funny obsessive zoologist and we also meet a corrupt dictator's wife, a kind of Mrs Gadaffi-type living it up (or rather down) in Hounslow with her spoilt young son.

Sharper satire is found in a scene from a TV drama audition where a group of women compete to play largely non-speaking roles of rape or murder victims. "No jokes...best leave that to the men," one of them says. There's certainly no danger of the fab Ms U ever doing that now, is there?

Third helping of repatriated ribaldry from Ullman's new series, and the recurring characters continue to bed in. Tonight's treats include Dame Maggie Smith's new green screen-ready showreel, events unfolding inside the HQ of a corporation stamping twee slogans on to premium earthenware, Dame Judi Dench's ongoing crime spree, and a raucous rock opera documenting Rebekah Brooks's return to the Chipping Norton set. Ullman's impressive ability to inhabit contrasting personas again outshines a patchy script.

More comedy as Tracey Ullman's Show continued. She hammed it up as the Duchess of Cornwall, all wellies and dressing gown, grumpily agreeing to babysit Prince George ("I'm not bloody Yoda! Who calls me Yoda?"); Dame Judi Dench unleashed a five-star mission of destruction, while milking her status as a national treasure ("I'd hardly spend my mornings blocking toilets in five-star hotels in London just because I could get away with it," she bluffs when a toilet attendant calls her on it); while Angela Merkel broke out of her uptight diplomacy rountine by jazz-scatting her way through an official reception ("Eins, zwei, drei, vier, get me an Uber over here").

Ullman is at her best in these lighter celeb sketches, but on much sketchier ground in scenes such as the Midlands couple who arrive home from holiday, discover an illegal immigrant clinging on under their motorhome and take him in to teach him about life in Britain ("Do you think he'd like to watch Eggheads?").