David Mitchell and Robert Webb belong on any list of the greatest 21st-century comedy acts (which is saying a lot in an era dominated by Key and Peele). Though best known for their innovative sitcom “Peep Show,” Mitchell and Webb also knocked out several years of absurd and delightfully nimble sketch programs on British television (some of them early fodder for YouTube). Their two-minute skit about a publisher giving notes to a writer is fast, funny and downright cathartic to anyone who’s ever been in a meeting about a creative project.

Well-tuned escalation and outlandish wit power the duo’s comedy, and this bit from their show “That Mitchell and Webb Look” starts innocently enough. The publisher (Webb) can’t follow the detective plot that a rumpled novelist (Mitchell) has just recapped. But instead of pushing for clarity, he lobs a wild suggestion: why not kill the lead character at the end of Chapter 1? That’s only the first of many rampaging revisions, culminating in dumping the story entirely: What if it were just “Jaws” instead? And what if the second character falls in love with a shark?

What dazzles more than the ludicrous twists is the glib nonsense of pseudo-collaboration, larded with disingenuous qualifiers. It’s worth reading a sample of the publisher’s delicious ballet of passive-aggressive hectoring: “I mean, what if — I mean, not this, ignore this — what if Henry (although, obviously not) — if he had sex — I mean, not ‘sex,’ but sex — right at the beginning with Sarah. I mean, not ‘Sarah,’ but you know?” Webb’s publisher is just “throwing things out there.” Meanwhile, Mitchell makes a minimalist delight of the writer’s befuddlement.

The ridiculous riffs beat out countless parodies of Hollywood producers, and, judging from the YouTube comments, it rings true: “like every production meeting I’ve ever had in television.”