Danny Dyer

Plebs is a bit like the spawn of The Inbetweeners and Up Pompeii, but set in ancient Rome to a soundtrack of ska classics, presumably for added anachronism. Friday Night Dinner's Tom Rosenthal is neurotic, uptight Marcus, Trollied's Joel Fry plays dufus Stylax, and Ryan Sampson is their dull-witted Manc slave Grumio, while Doon Mackichan adds class as the boys' ruthless boss Flavia. The first instalment finds them trading their grocery budget for orgy tickets, while Danny Dyer, of all people, turns up as gladiator Cassius in episode two.

Danny Dyer on his guest role in Plebs

Danny Dyer took his latest TV role as a gladiator too far - by hitting his opponent in the head with a spear.

ITV2's first new sitcom in years, Plebs works on the basis that young single men have always been pathetic and feckless at every single point in history. To prove it, they've taken the dynamic of The Likely Lads and exported it to Ancient Rome, focusing on three men (two plebs and a slave, technically) desperate to get their ends away.

This should rightly set off alarm bells - 'Is ITV2 the kind of place to be attempting nuanced historical comedy?' you might ask. No, of course it's not. Thankfully, Plebs doesn't try. Instantly reminiscent of Mel Brooks's loose adherence to period and historical accuracy (a la Blazing Saddles), characters say words like 'coolio', 'legend' and 'literally' as though they've wandered in from a WKD advert set at a toga party.

Not that this is some kind of charmless lad-fest - this opening double-bill bursts with originality and thankfully doesn't feel the need to make cheap historical gags every ten seconds. Miraculously, it even makes great use of Danny Dyer, who dominates in the second episode as a gladiator.

When something is rumoured as possibly the worst British film ever, there's a car crash-type need to see it. And when you spy Cliff Richard and Rolf Harris cameoing as buskers during the opening credits you know you're in for a humdinger. This remake of Ray Cooney's 'whoops, where's me trousers?' farce casts Danny Dyer - who else? - as a black cabbie whose bigamist lifestyle is threatened with exposure after a dog food-eating tramp (Judi Dench - what was she thinking?) clocks him one with a handbag. Neil Morrissey sits on a chocolate cake, Richard Briers falls into a hedge, Christopher Biggins pushes Lionel Blair bum-first through a bathroom floor - no one emerges unscathed among the cameo-packed cast that reads largely like a roll-call for Brit TV legends you'd previously suspected deceased.

Review: Run For Your Wife (12A)

What was funny on stage doesn't translate and this still-born effort, headed by dire Danny Dyer, gives only fleeting glimpses of the humour that made the original such a winner.

In this farce, Danny Dyer plays a man with more than one wife. Does that mean he's a Mormon? No, this is a Dyer movie so there is one too many Ms in that description.

When I was a kid, my parents took me to see the stage version of Run For Your Wife. I don't remember much about it but the audience definitely laughed.

This adaptation must surely be very different, then, because there are no funny jokes.

The closest it got to making me guffaw was when Lionel Blair's bottom fell through a bathroom ceiling.

Playing spot "so-and-so off the telly" will help pass the time as there are plenty of actors of Lionel's level in the cast, such as Neil Morrissey, Denise Van Outen and Christopher Biggins.

They are all more convincing than Danny attempting to play a loveable London bigamist covering his tracks.

I appreciate Run For Your Wife is supposed to be dumb, but rarely has a film aimed so low and missed its target so woefully.

Danny Dyer stars in excruciating Brit comedy

Beyond the excruciatingly dated comedy, Run For Your Wife also stumbles by being about as visually ambitious as a cheap ITV sitcom.

Run For Your Wife review

Ray Cooney's best-of-British bigamist caper is a woeful piece of cinema, even while Danny Dyer makes for strangely charming lead.

Run for Your Wife - review

The trouser-dropping 80s stage farce finally hits the big screen with Danny Dyer, to kill off any remaining British self-respect.

Review: Run for Your Wife

Hopelessly dated and poorly executed comedy starring Danny Dyer.