A brand new Irish sketch show on RTÉ? Have they finally cracked the comedy formula?

RTÉ's new comedy sketch show, No Worries If Not, isn’t quite the finished product, but the vigour and vivacity of its humour suggest it might be worth sticking with.

It sees RTÉ go beyond its traditional talent gene pool by working with comedians who have had success on Twitter and TikTok. These include Justine Stafford, Michael Fry, Sean Burke, Emma Doran and Killian Sundermann.

But the writers and performers are still finding their way, and there are moments when the humour plunges into the Irish-mammy abyss. The first episode opens with a laboured routine about “the sesh”; later there is a skit about south Dublin rugby bros that takes the form of a Hot Chip/Metronomy-style pop song and doesn’t seem to know where it is going (and also suffers for its Dublin parochialism).

There’s a brisk piece about pretentious actors in which one of the ensemble plays Fleabag’s hot priest, Andrew Scott. I’m not sure you could go so far as to describe the routine as funny, but its nihilistic gusto will keep you watching

No Worries If Not (RTÉ2, Thursday) is much better when it stops trying to be specifically Irish and engages with material that has nothing to do with leaving the immersion on or bringing a bag of cans to your pal’s free gaff.

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The high point is a skit about “sibling-jive-alry”, a parody of a You’re a Star — style Irish provincial pop band who are celebrities in their home townland. It’s a great showcase for Fry and Stafford, as the twins Frances and Francis (or is it the other way around?), and would make a decent, if pretty wacky, sitcom on its own (even if it is blatantly indebted to Flight of the Conchords). Best of all, it explores the gentle absurdity of small-town Irish life without all the spice box or ”did you hear who’s dead?” baggage that comics too often lean into.

No Worries If Not ― the name comes from a humour piece in the New Yorker magazine ― also does well when it bares its fangs slightly. There’s a brisk piece about pretentious actors in which one of the ensemble plays Fleabag’s hot priest, Andrew Scott. I’m not sure you could go so far as to describe the routine as funny, but its nihilistic gusto will keep you watching.

And there is an engaging sketch in which a guide to a wild night out pivots into phantasmagoric horror with the arrival on the dance floor of the Grim Reaper. Which is not a sentence anyone ever wrote about Killinaskully, where the phantasmagoric horror was baked in from the start and largely accidental.

RTÉ and comedy have historically gone together about as well as, well, RTÉ and any other genre that isn’t property TV. No Worries If Not may very visibly be a work in progress, but it won’t make you squirm. By historical standards, that’s a win.