Staged – Series 2

That might sound a bit complicated, and it is, but that is all part of the fun. Evans was a magician before he was a director – he performed in Pizza Express as a teenager – and that tendency to toy with reality is on full display here, just as it is in the frantic fringe shows he creates with fellow director David Aula. The disorientation is all part of the delight.

The key thing is that the Sheen-Tennant double-act is back. Evans uses the conceit of them being recast for a US remake – and the ire that induces – as a tool to totally dismantle their senses of self. Tennant, with longer locks and a scruffier hoody, becomes insufferably introspective. Sheen, hair and beard exploding from his face, becomes utterly intolerant. They bicker. They bite. They fight. They fall out. They make up again.

They are ably supported, too. First and foremost by their real-life partners – the actors Georgia Tennant and Anna Lundberg – but also by a succession of increasingly starry names. Michael Palin pops up in the first episode, playing a superbly spiky version of himself, as does Whoopi Goldberg, playing their angry agent. And – no spoilers – it gets even starrier than that.

It’s always at its strongest, though, when it is just Sheen and Tennant, tooling around together for endless hours via video-call. Yes, it is self-obsessed. Yes, it is navel-gazing. But that is entirely the point. It’s a painfully funny portrait of two natural performers spiralling into insanity without an audience to applaud them.