William Shakespeare, his father, mother, wife and daughter are sitting in his kitchen. Anne Hathaway gives the playwright some advice. “Don’t do comedy. It’s not your strong point.” Will is affronted. “It is my strong point, wife. It just needs lengthy explanation and copious footnotes. If you do your research, my stuff is really funny.”

Ben Elton has done his research for his Shakespeare sitcom, Upstart Crow (first of six episodes, 9 May), and it is pleasing to report that it is also really funny – and decidedly Shakespearean. More than Shakespeare, though, it resembles vintage Ben Elton. David Mitchell’s splendid Will is a close relation to Edmund Blackadder, being pompous, vituperative, scheming and quite stupid.

It began unpromisingly, with Shakespeare, working on Romeo and Juliet, making his daughter Susannah read Juliet’s lines. She spoke like a modern teenager, or rather the clichéd teenager familiar from the sketch shows of a decade ago. But soon the generous spirit of the script and the confidence of the performances shone through.