CATASTROPHE, C4, 10pm

CHANNEL 4 comedy is patchy. There can be total genius such as Toast of London, and then a little succession of mediocre shows which are quickly forgotten. While Catastrophe isn’t quite a work of brilliance, it’s still spiky, clever, utterly profane and very funny.

This is the start of its second series. The first saw Irish Sharon and American Rob have a one-night stand from which Sharon became pregnant and so they decided to get married and raise the child.

In this new series, Sharon is still pregnant, yet years have passed. They are having their second baby and allowing that to cause stress, worry, bitchy little arguments and clumsy, ungainly attempts at having sex.

One of their arguments is about Sharon’s legs. She rests them on Rob’s legs and he claims it’s giving him cramp. They fight and insult one another spectacularly but then, the next day, all is forgiven and Sharon makes numerous calls to Rob’s office demanding he come home as she’s going into labour. The poor man races home in terror to find her cosy on the sofa, saying she was bored and just fancied a bit of company. They’re a great on-screen couple.

PROFESSOR GREEN: SUICIDE AND ME, BBC3, 9pm

PART of BBC 3’s Gender Season, the rapper, Professor Green, explores the subject of male suicide – the biggest killer of men under 45. He says that most people would assume young men are most likely to be killed by violence or car crashes, destructive acts for which they could be blamed as hot-headed young men, but it’s most likely to be suicide: turning any violence inward upon their own person.

In asking why suicide is the main cause of death, Professor Green tells the story of his own father who killed himself, hoping this investigation will bring him some “closure” and understanding of why his dad took his own life, and maybe help us grasp the scale of this “silent epidemic”.

When the rapper was 24, it was “blurted out” to him that his dad had hanged himself. His initial reaction was anger and he began punching the walls. What was so bad, he demanded to know, that his father felt he had to die?

In telling the story, he goes back to his childhood home in Hackney, wandering round the housing estates and the pubs to speak to his dad’s old friends and try to understand what happened. Yet it becomes obvious he “kept his demon’ hidden” and he pinpoints this “classic male trait” as one of the worrying aspects: men won’t reach out for help. Maybe this programme and its honesty can begin to change that.