I like Lily Allen. For a 22-year with a famous dad, trying to forge her own music and television career, she seems refreshingly normal. She has always been open with her fans and the press about her life, and a number of press sources have reported on her fat days, her love life, her recent pregnancy and her subsequent miscarriage. She comes across as genuine, she laughs loud and dirty, and (best of all) she actually has some musical talent.

No-one would turn down a drinks invitation from Lily, which is perhaps why her new show is based in Lily’s studio "pub” (spookily reminiscent of Chris Evans’ TFI Friday set-up), where celebrity guests, civilian “friends of Lily” in the audience (who have registered in advance on the accompanying internet site) and bands selected by the audience can, supposedly, mingle with one another.

Unfortunately, what is supposed to feel like a natural environment comes across on screen as extremely contrived, and the show’s presenter seems painfully aware of this. When reading her many autocued links, she adopts the tone of either an overexcited Blue Peter presenter, or a serious head prefect giving a Parents Day speech. Add this to the incessant musical stings and the over-funky graphics and you have a programme that is quite uncomfortable to watch in places.

Once the teenage audience had calmed down from their initial whooping frenzy, they also started to look tired and bored which caused the atmosphere in the studio to deflate considerably. Having said that, once in conversation with her guests, especially Cuba Gooding Jr., Lily warms up a great deal, and some of the off-the-cuff banter between them is genuinely hilarious. During the interviews, we don’t learn anything new or interesting about David Mitchell or Cuba, but they certainly get a chance to show us the funny, and this provides the bulk of the show’s light entertainment factor. Lily seems so much more natural when she isn’t restricted by cards or autocue, and the guests seem to be put at ease by this.

The internet videos section seems tacked on and surely there is no need to fill time with clips of animals getting busy, when you have the truly weird and wonderful Tay Zonday in the studio. Tay is the internet phenomenon who recorded his own ad for Dr Pepper after being discovered through his Youtube video and he has bags of charisma and a real story to tell. Unfortunately, he was not on screen for long enough to tell it. BBC3’s intention to pad out the show with “user-generated content” (in the form of viewer-submitted videos and links) could be it’s undoing, as I suspect that most viewers want to see telly made by the professionals, not their mates down the pub.

Thanks to the quality of the guests, the show was mildly entertaining and hopefully Lily will develop into her presenter role as time goes on, but overall this BBC3 flagship chat show doesn’t have much to “Smile” about.