W1A, TV review: The ghost of Jeremy Clarkson looms large over BBC Broadcasting House

First look: A series in, this BBC satire has grown into itself

Satirical BBC series W1A return for another series...on BBC2 (Jack Barnes)

Jeremy Clarkson – who else – looms large over the return of the BBC’s in-house sitcom. The W1A writing team have dealt with the corporation’s latest gaffe with all the deft humour and lightness of touch that their fictional BBC bosses – ineffectual and absurd from the unseen Tony Hall downwards – lack.

We see inside the “Damage Limitation Meeting” in which Head of Values, Ian Fletcher, thrashes out “this week’s Clarkson strategy”. Subsequently an unfortunate intern is dispatched to watch four years’ worth of Top Gear and write down the offensive bits, while the disgraced presenter’s surname is bleeped out and his face pixelated whenever they arise. Lovely.

Like Twenty-Twelve, the Olympics sitcom which preceded it, the joy of W1A is where life and art seem to blur, in those storylines which are silly, but not quite beyond belief. In this first, hour-long and gag-packed, episode of the new series, not only do the BBC chiefs have C******n to deal with, they are also in danger of losing Wimbledon – “leaving the BBC with no live sport that people understand...” – because its coverage is “too white”. Enter, Siobhan “de nada” Sharpe to mash-up some ideas for rebranding tennis.

Add to that an imminent visit from Prince Charles and Portland Place all but enters meltdown. The Royal strand brings the welcome addition to the cast of Samuel West – in full just-eaten-a-wasp mode as Clarence House’s head of security. Under his icy patrician glare, the final 20 minutes unfold like an old-fashioned farce – locked doors, revolving doors, a maze of corridors linking Old and New Broadcasting House and some inevitably malfunctioning bollards. They are the oldest of visual gags but when shot with the full, luscious might of the BBC, how effective they are.

All the elements of the original series are back like old friends, too – the whizzy timelapse shots of Portland Place, awkward chats in rooms labelled ‘Frankie Howerd’ and the like, and pointless meetings where people only say “Yes”, “No”, “Brilliant” or “I mean, great”. One spot-on, throwaway voiceover describes a sitcom project as “finally nearing another meeting”.

Meanwhile, the in-house IT system Syncopatico is still malfunctioning, Will the intern still cannot get his words out and Siobhan is still mangling English (she gets QED muddled with QVC). As per, nobody has any good ideas, or likes anyone else.

Hugh Bonneville’s wonderfully harried Ian Fletcher and David Tennant’s droll narration (“Meanwhile, back up in Frankie Howerd...”) are still probably the best things about the show. A series in, it has grown into itself. The smug celebrity cameos of Alan Yentob arm-wrestling Salman Rushdie, say, are less prevalent. There is just a quick shot of The One Show presenters in the canteen queue. And that is for the best.

At the preview screening, the producer Jon Plowman said he would like the show to run until the charter renewal in 2016. On this evidence – and at the rate the BBC is churning out scandals and gaffes – it could run a lot longer than that.

W1A starts 23 April at 9pm on BBC2.