The annual review

After a lull earlier in the year, we're currently being spoiled for new comedy - and, as usual, it's the BBC who are responsible.

No sooner has 'Saxondale' finished (with a surprisingly poignant though not particularly funny episode) than Armando Iannucci's new series 'Time Trumpet' (10pm, Thurs, BBC2) begins. The show is set in the year 2031 (when meat is a source of energy), with Iannucci and a panel of comedians including Adam Buxton, Richard Ayoade and the inimitable Stewart Lee looking back on the events of previous years.

Last night was 2007, which featured David Cameron copying everything Tony Blair does, a 'Dragon's Den' spoof with a pair of budding entrepreneurs trying to interest the panel in a cake cover, and Charlotte Church vomiting herself inside out after a night on the Bacardi Breezers. It seems as though Iannucci has been keeping all his surrealism bottled up to stop it from seeping into the scripts of 'The Thick Of It', and now the bottle's been uncorked. Not as good as 'The Armando Iannucci Show' or 'The Day Today', but then what is?

Rather less entertaining is 'Rob Brydon's Annually Retentive', in the midst of a run on BBC3. It's a panel show in the style of 'Have I Got News For You', but with much of the material coming from scripted behind-the-scenes footage.

Not only is the quiz itself unoriginal (something the writers gleefully admit), but I gather the whole concept isn't original either, American TV having already had a spoof chat show which delved behind the scenes. But the problem with this programme is that it just doesn't really work. All the funniest lines are in the "off-camera" footage (which, incidentally, marks it out as another post-'Office' comedy), so the clips of the panel show itself generally feel like irritating intrusions. Brydon's a funny man (see: 'A Cock & Bull Story', 'The Keith Barrett Show'), and this isn't the best vehicle for his talents. It's watchable for him, though.