The Sketch Show is... Only Sleeping?

I wasn't sure what to expect from The Peter Serafinowicz Show (Thursday, 9.30pm BBC2), and having seen the first episode, I'm not entirely sure what to expect next week either.

It's been heavily trailed over the past few weeks, but all I could glean from the fast-cut promos was that it appeared to be some kind of Dead Ringers-esque impressions-based sketch show, which meant my anticipation levels weren't exactly sky-high at the prospect.

Serafinowicz has been around the comedy scene for ages, in fact name almost any half-decent British comedy from the last 10 years or so and he's probably popped up in it somewhere. He's perhaps best known however, for the almost-too-good educational programme spoof Look Around You, which, like this series he also co-wrote with Robert Popper, so there's a good pedigree here at least.

It is slightly worrying though, the way that the BBC keeps referring to him as 'the next big star' or whatever, because not only is such self-assured cockiness on the part of the corporation rather unappealing, it slightly devalues all the stuff he's done before. Not only that, it puts an incredible amount of pressure on this particular show, rather than just putting it out there and letting people find it, which is usually the best route looking at most successful comedies of recent times.

Anyway, the show itself is sort of like Dead Ringers, except not all of the sketches featured caricatures of famous people - and at least some of it was funny.

By implication of course, some of it wasn't, and when sketches fell flat they really did, and when presented with yet another Big Brother spoof, my heart truly sank like a stone.

It was refreshingly pacey though - the sketches came thick and fast, not quite Fast Show levels, but just about the right speed in order to get the joke across, or conversely move on quickly if a sketch didn't work.

I can't say I remember laughing out loud at all, but throughout the show there was an endearing nuttiness underlying much of it, namely the robotic talk show host Michael-6 and the Michael Caine acting masterclass.

I'll probably keep watching, if only because it's quite nice to see a programme where I suspect the star is genuinely enjoying himself making it.

Actually, it was almost worth it just for the scarily accurate impression of Alan Alda.