When the first season of 'LOL: Last One Laughing UK' landed on Amazon Prime last year, it achieved a couple of things.
The comedy competition confirmed what national treasures, Bob Mortimer and Richard Ayoade are.
The show was also enthusiastically gobbled up by a British public desperate for laughs, thanks to a daily diet of depressing news on mainstream TV channels, radio stations and the rage bait populating their social media feeds.
Amazon Prime UK secured its biggest ever audience - with around two million people streaming it.
With Amazon quickly commissioning a second season for 2026, the immediate question facing the producers was: could lightning strike twice?
Very cleverly, the producers hit on one way to give the show a fighting chance of doing exactly that by bringing back last year's winner Bob Mortimer to defend his crown.
Let's explain the show's premise for those unfamiliar with it.
'LOL: Last One Laughing UK' corrals ten comedians - five men and five women - into a 'Big Brother' style set for six hours in a competition to see who can keep a straight face while their rivals try to make them laugh.
Laugh once and you get a yellow card.
Laugh again and you receive a red card and are out.
The comedian who lasts the longest without laughing wins.
In addition to Mortimer, 2026's crop of comedians includes household names like 'Celebrity Traitors UK' winner Alan Carr, 'Motherland' star Diane Morgan, 'Peep Show' star and 'Would I Lie To You?' team captain David Mitchell, the former host of 'The Great British Bake Off' Mel Giedroyc and deadpan doyen of the comedy panel show circuit, Romesh Ranganathan.
The remainder of the field is rounded out by up and coming Yorkshire stand-ups Maisie Adam and Amy Gledhill, Nigerian born actress and comedian Gbemisola Ikumelo and the surreal Australian comic Sam Campbell.
Returning as host is Jimmy Carr, with Roisin Conaty back as his sidekick.
So, does the second season hit the heights of the first?
The good news is that the format still works, with each episode undoubtedly having laugh out loud moments.
Inevitably with a second series, the novelty factor has gone this time around and it's not quite as good.
This time around, the cast and the celebrity guests sent in to make the competitors corpse have to work even harder for those laughs.
Bob Mortimer, though, remains a delight, with his novelty songs, quickfire thinking and surreal humour.
Mitchell and Morgan are great choices for the line up, while the thought of Carr, who could barely keep a straight face during 'The Celebrity Traitors,' having to do just that for six hours is worth the monthly payment of your Amazon subscription alone.
This year's comedy highlights include Carr's mock quiz using a sausage making machine, his claim that he was outed by a Ouija board, Ranganthan's self deprecating routine involving a picture of the Cookie Monster, Bob Mortimer's Iron Man quip and Diane Morgan's Dylan Thomas recital.
A guest appearance involving Richard Madeley interviewing some of the competitors was a real surprise, while Ellie White and Natasia Demitriou's cameo as intimacy coordinators also hits the spot.
Carr, unfortunately, remains a bit of an irritating host, inserting himself far too much into proceedings.
His role in the dismissal of one contestant seems particularly unfair.
It also remains a mystery why Conaty, who can be really funny, is willing to play second fiddle to Carr by just sitting on a sofa and making the kind of comments viewers are making at home.
The final episode also flags up a real problem with the format, with the six hour limit forcing Carr to ditch the yellow card and ratchet up the pressure to expel contestants.
Overall, 'LOL: Last One Laughing UK' works and you can see how the depth of the UK's stand up culture could sustain it for a few more seasons yet.
But the format could still do with a bit of a shake up.
Getting a new host might be a good start.
(Episodes of 'LOL: Last One Laughing UK' were made available for streaming between March 19 and April 2, 2026)
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