Ben Elton

If he hadn't actually written this himself, you'd have assumed some sort of Ben Elton sitcom generator had done the job for him. A short-fused health-and-safety manager (David Haig) with a gay daughter, and her live-in girlfriend, tries to get to grips with modern life: whether wrestling with taps or buying a birthday gift for a female co-worker. As mirthless as it is dated (pratfalls, innuendo, jokes about PC-ness), it's comparable to Extras' When The Whistle Blows, with a regrettably similar catchphrase: "Do not get me started."

Maybe it's too easy to knock Ben Elton these days but God, this is diabolical. Making The Thin Blue Line and Blessed look like comic masterpieces by comparison, Elton's latest foray into sitcom stars David Haig (doing his level best against impossible odds) as Baselricky council's health-and-safety manager, Gerald Wright. Default mode: exasperation. Bugbears: women in bathrooms, poor dishwasher etiquette, faulty faucets. Catchphrase: 'don't get me started'. You know the type.

Fortunately, there's a clap-happy studio audience to disguise the absence of a single good joke - wordplay around 'erection' and 'knob' is about as creative as it gets. And, in case you think all that sounds hopelessly out of step with the modern world, the girlfriend of Gerald's lesbian daughter drops a couple of references to hashtags and 'YouTube moments'. Never have Blackadder and The Young Ones seemed so long ago. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

What happened to Ben Elton?

Who would believe this is the same comic whose stand-up routines sandblasted away the pebbledash of 1970s tit-gags and racism?

The sitcom that proves Ben Elton is no longer funny

How is it possible this dire new comedy was written by the same person behind Blackadder and The Young Ones?

Once the enfant terrible of British comedy, Ben Elton has diverted his considerable energy in recent years to writing brash satirical fiction and money-spinning musicals. He hasn't touched television in any major way since 2005 with his short-lived sitcom Blessed, an ill-advised riff on parenting. Now he's back, braving the genre with this six-part series based around the goings on at fictional Baselricky Council Health & Safety Department. It's a hit-and-miss affair. On the one hand, you get to spend time with the superlative David Haig who stars as pernickety department head Gerald Wright, six months post-break-up from his wife and living with daughter Susan (Joanne Matthews) and her ditzy partner Victoria (Beattie Edmondson).

High-octane Haig rules the screen with an admirably dextrous performance reminiscent of Elton himself in its attack and precision. The council setting also has potential, giving Elton the chance to challenge the bureaucracy of small-minded local government - tonight's episode tackles red tape around a rogue speed bump. But despite old-fashioned sitcom aspirations, it's tame stuff compared to Elton's politically charged persona of old, and the laughs are too few.

It is with relief that I can report that Ben Elton's new comeback series is hilarious! It is a classic situation comedy with great jokes and ... and funny characters who ... who ...

No. I'm sorry, it's no good. You see, it really is no good; in fact, it's a stinker. David Haig plays Gerald Wright (hence the title!), an annoying man who wants everything done a certain way. It's a perennial sitcom trope, done beautifully by Richard Briers in Ever Decreasing Circles, for instance, or 
decently by Chris Barrie in The Brittas Empire. He's a health and safety inspector for a local council, the department "that introduced the static seesaw and the horizontal slide [and said] babies must wear helmets when breastfeeding near the swings".

But what makes it a stinker are the jokes, which feel as though when the BBC moved out of Television Centre they found an old box at the back of the cupboard labelled "Leftover Sitcom Gags 1973". They are ancient, is what I'm saying, they have whiskers on them.

The main running joke involves Wright trying to wash his hands under a bathroom tap and soaking his trousers, and then someone coming in and thinking he's wet himself, and then shoogling about under a hand dryer and someone else coming in and thinking he's doing something filthy. And this happens three times.

Haig tries to make things sound funny by stretching and emphasising certain words - not a stammer, but a sort of word-mastication which would be excellent for someone trying to practice shorthand or audio typing dictation, if anyone still does that nowadays.

The show's token nod to modernity is that Wright lives with his daughter and her female partner (played by Beattie Edmondson, daughter of Elton's old chum Adrian - how cosy). He has to buy a present and they suggest a shop called Girl Shack - wait, Girl Shack? In 2013? I take it Chic Chicks or Trendy Togs or Burdz Boutique were all taken?

Finally, there is the catchphrase: "Don't get me started!" which Wright says when particularly exasperated. This is very nearly "Are you 'avin' a laugh?" from Ricky Gervais' spoof sitcom When The Whistle Blows. Sorry, Ben: this isn't 
the one that's going to win over your critics.

Review: We Are Most Amused, Royal Albert Hall

Rowan Atkinson provided a fitting climax to last night's Prince's Trust Gala in front of Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall as he appeared alongside Miranda Hart in a smart topical sketch written by compere Ben Elton.

A look back on the alternative comedy movement

Rik Mayall, Jenny Eclair and Ben Elton are among the 1980s alt.comics who shaped comedy today.