The IT Crowd

Following a weekend away, I’ve finally caught up with Friday night’s episode of Graham Linehan’s The IT Crowd. The first series had unsteady and self-conscious and just not really as funny as the audience laughter wanted it to be. But this episode pretty much nailed it with a decent gag rate, great performances (Chris O’Dowd being the stand out) and three strong, intersecting storylines.

Linehan appears to have figured out what he wants to do with the show, because it balanced the traditional sitcom format with the all-out surreal, unlike last time around when it continually fell over. And it had the best ‘British view of Ireland’ joke since Linehan and Arthur Matthews had a business lunch with Alan Partridge.