Culturally, weโ€™re obsessed with the past. Hollywoodโ€™s Golden Age, weโ€™re constantly reminded, was the โ€™40s and โ€™50s. Rockโ€™s glory days were the โ€™60s and โ€™70s. Not so the US sitcom. The last 10 years or so have seen Roseanne, Cybill, Ellen, Friends, Frasier, Will & Grace, Sex And The City and, of course, greatest of all, Seinfeld and The Larry Sanders Show. If itโ€™s 30-minute bursts of nihilistic hilarity and racily paced neurosis youโ€™re after, these are, indeed, the best of times.

You know youโ€™re living through a flourishing period of creativity when the brains behind one of these latterday classics?step forward Larry David, co-creator and co-executive producer of Seinfeld?can, with almost insolent ease, conjure up a second bid for comic immortality. Curb Your Enthusiasm has the dark, v