Brian Sewell

For years now television experts have been handing out advice on how to cook, decorate, garden, dress, clean, save money and make love. There is no aspect of our lives that a tacky lifestyle programme made on the cheap cannot address, and the more colourful the presenter, the more popular the series. So here is a resumé of television experts down the ages, from Fanny Craddock and Sir Patrick Moore to Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen and Gordon Ramsay. As a collection of pretty ordinary clips, it is no better or worse than the original programmes. It is made bearable by the fruity wickedness of Brian Sewell, who goes down the list of experts being deliciously rude about everyone with scant disregard for the laws of libel.

The only possible reason to watch this series would be to see the clips, since the talking heads say nothing of any interest and the linking commentary from Clive Anderson is laboured and clumsy. But not even the clips are funny tonight, unlike those on earlier programmes about politicians and animals. How many times can anyone watch a person falling over on live TV or see presenters dying on air before it becomes repetitive? It also relies heavily for its material on programmes hosted by Noel Edmonds or series such as The Word and The Big Breakfast, which are the kind of programmes that give populism a bad name. Still, it looks set to liven up next week, with Brian Sewell being rude about television experts.