To mark Valentine’s Day the BBC commissioned a selection of romantic shorts from the likes of Bill Bailey, Matt Berry, Romesh Ranganathan, Sara Pascoe, Limmy, Nick Helm, Modern Toss, Russ Abbot and Katy Wix. You hopefully had better things to do than watch iPlayer yesterday, but now is a good chance to catch up. Beyond The Joke will be reviewing them over the next few days.

First up is Sara Pascoe in Music Lovers. Pascoe is slightly in danger of being ubiquitous at the moment, but it is no surprise she is in demand. She is smart and funny and can act too. In her snappy short she steers clear of the feminist politics of her stand-up work to play Lance, the lead singer of Scandi band Monozygotic who has commendable attitude when the camera points in her direction: “We’re not here to break the UK, we’re here to fix it”.

Smack The Pony and Not the Nine O’Clock News (ask your dad) used to do great pop send-ups and this one brings the concept up to date, showcasing the quartet’s thumpingly catchy electronic music and then also profiling them. Various Monozygotic members have been in relationships with other members, but any similarity to Abba or Fleetwood Mac is purely coincidental. The splits certainly inspire their lyrics though, as Lance reveals on one of her favourite tracks: “Dumping you has made me horny”. 

The supporting cast is good too. Elis James plays Huunting, John Robins is Jove and Vanessa Hammick is Persecute. Well worth 7 minutes and 58 seconds of your time. I particularly liked their feeble-minded attempts at putting English idioms into their lyrics and getting them utterly wrong: “You turned my heart into a fish sausage baby”.

Watch Sara Pascoe: Music Lovers here.

Watch Nick Helm's short here.

Watch Matt Berry's short here.

Watch Romesh Ranganathan's short here.

Watch Bill Bailey's short here.