Set your PVR – Lead Balloon, BBC HD, Tuesday, 10:30pm
It's ironic that Jack Dee makes a comeback to peaktime TV with this wry sitcom about a comedian whose career is on a downward slide. With his vaguely similar name, "Rick Spleen" is clearly an alter ego for Dack Dee, like a version of him from a parallel universe where his life has gone down the toilet.
The hapless Spleen is also like a British parallel for Larry David, the Seinfeld co-creator whose self-deprecating series Curb Your Enthusiasm hits comedy heights while plumbing the depths of despair for Larry's on-screen persona.
With Dee making a perfect grouchy everyman and his long suffering family and small circle of "friends" providing amiable foils for Dee's general moans and mishaps, Lead Balloon goes down really well, despite the show's name. Not many UK comedies have been made in HD either, so this a chance to savour it again after its recent BBC4 and BBC2 run, or for the first time.
The squirm factor is not quite as strong as with Curb Your Enthusiasm but this low-key sitcom is shot like a drama without a laugh track and while the dialogue and acting feel improvised, the plots are relatively tightly planned out to reach a specific conclusion. With the December 19 episode, "Allergic", the ending brings on a catastrophic social faux pas as Rick finds out whether he really did inadvertently kill one of Britain's much loved entertainers by giving him a cup of caffeinated coffee by mistake.
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