COMEDY

BBC2, 8.30pm

David Mitchell returns in the second series of Ben Elton’s ye olde sitcom about an up and coming writer by the name of William Shakespeare.

Delightfully sarcastic, deadpan, fed up and prone to a ranting monologue, David really could just be playing himself. Aside from the odd Elizabethan reference, we could be watching him on Would I Lie To You? or some other panel show.

But that’s fine by us, with Shakespeare’s over-zealous wordplay the main joke here. There are endless wonderful insults, such as “lickspittle nicombunion”, that we really do hope will catch on. His friend and would-be actress Kate (Gemma Whelan) tells him he needs to grow some bollingbrooks.

There’s an A-list cast too, with Harry Enfield mainly gurning in the corner as Will’s dad, Paula Wilcox as his mum, Helen Monks as his stroppy teenage daughter, Liza Tarbuck as his wife and the always hilarious Mark Heap as a bitter rival.

In this episode, an African Prince is in town and Will decides that befriending him might help with some social climbing.