As a source of comedy, London 2012 is up there with farting, clowns and falling over.

Ever since we won, it’s been a continuous source of giggling and sniggering; an embarrassing wart on our nation’s skin. Twenty Twelve, the BBC’s new sitcom, incorporates everything that is awkward and silly about our Olympics into a neat, new comedy of gentle satire that goes right to the heart of everything great and/or excruciating about Britain – our eccentrics, our looneys, our fools and our phonies.

Set in the fictional Department of Olympic Deliverance and voiced by David Tennant in mockumentary style, we are invited into the world of the people in charge of the games. From Hugh Bonneville’s permanently huffing and puffing Minister to Olivia Coleman’s excellent “YES SIR, NO SIR” receptionist, we get a fast-moving camera-swoop of the spectrum of idiocy that is entrusted with the country’s reputation. The scariest thing is that compared to Boris Johnson, Bonneville’s character is relatively unruffled, a rare case where satire is trumped by someone being beyond parody.

Episode one (now on iPlayer) focuses on the unveiling of a supersilly countdown clock that not only looks utterly cuckoo but also doesn’t really work. The next day in real life 2012 preparation, our actual countdown clock stopped working and gave Twenty Twelve all the credibility it needs as an up-to-date, ironic comedy.

There must be nothing better for the writers of this show, intending to lampoon the Olympic clusterfuck than for their fictional ideas to be immediately followed by a similarly stupid cock-up. In fact, it must be a little bit too easy.

In some ways, this is what stunts the show as a piece of sniping social humour – far from being a prophetic bite onto the backsides of money-vomiting executives with about as much interest in sport as I have in algebra, it comes across as an exaggerated account of all the little mistakes made on the way to the big event. You get the feeling it is going to be heralded as a triumph no matter what in the land of Twenty Twelve.

That is to say that it is most definitely more ha-ha sitcom than fiery satire. Less The Thick of It and more The Fun of It.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but don’t come to Twenty Twelve expecting to be outraged – rather expect to be dipped in and out of the cuddly world of boffins and bitches. Watch Twenty Twelve envisaging it as the television equivalent of the games itself; an over-thought, over-expensive, relatively harmless exercise of British charm.

It’s not as good and won’t be as good as its predecessors, but ultimately, if Take Me Out isn’t on, you might as well give it a watch.