Frank Skinner’s Opinionated- BBC2- Fridays @10pm- 8 out of 10

Back in the halcyon days of the 1990's when there was a post-Cold War hope for peace, a charismatic man in both the White House and Number 10 (Clinton and Blair, not Bush and Major!) and Cool Britannia TM, there was a show where two men sat on a sofa and spoke things. My dad liked it. My mum hated it. A youthful me, perhaps in shorts though hopefully not, had no idea what was going on. I probably wanted to watch Rugrats to be honest.

Fast forward 10 or 15 years and these two men have evolved beyond all recognition. From being accident architects of the lad culture of the 1990s, with their football banter and generally sexist jokes, David Baddiel has written a sensitive comedy about Jews and Muslims. Meanwhile, Frank Skinner has a radio show and this, Frank Skinner's Opinionated.

The style of the show is very similar to all of Skinner's television work, large on audience interaction, although there is now more of a chat show aspect where Skinner talks to his guests, usually comedians.

This is Skinner's first time back on TV for since he finished Baddiel and Skinner Unplanned back in 2005 and since then he long since evolved. He has a much more refined comedy technique, less reliance on sexist and controversial jokes. He has a very broad, diverse style of comedy ranging from current affairs to self-depreciation and all stops in between.

The studio looks remarkably like Question Time, likewise, the whole road show element where different cities play host every week. The content, however, is not quite Question Time. Despite promising more current affairs based comedy, politics is usually used as a spring board for anecdotes from the three comedians.

Every so often however, genuinely interesting subjects are raised. In the first episode, elocution and class are covered, as well as plastic surgery. What makes the show work is the deliberate placing of people with knowledge in these areas in the audience. For example, they had a woman with the world record for most number of plastic surgeries, which prompted intelligent, thoughtful and yes at times, humorous, comments from the host, his guests and the audience.

This reviewer has often been critical of the number of current affairs based comedy shows on the BBC at the minute but this is a genuinely new approach to a format that should be applauded and a great showcase for Skinner's talent that is properly blossoming as his career goes on.