Dave Allen (I)

Remembering laughter legend Dave Allen

Dave Allen is trapped in limbo. The Irish comedian has been floating in the afterlife ever since his death in 2005. Well, at least he is in a new one-man play about to be premiered in Manchester.

On the face of it, Comic's Choice looked as if it was going to be negligibly mediocre. It had the kind of jaunty animated title sequence we've seen a hundred times before, and the pre-broadcast description indicated that it was yet another clip-show, one of those comedians-talking-to-comedians affairs that can occasionally make contemporary broadcasting look like a vast job-creation scheme for underemployed stand-ups. The saving grace here is that one of the comedians (the presenter one) is Bill Bailey. Not only can he play his own signature tune but he's got a manner that somehow makes the format work, which is handy for Channel 4, since it's on every night this week, as a curtain-raiser to the British Comedy Awards this coming weekend.

That's the premise. The British Comedy Awards do flavour of the month, while this short series explores more durable supremacy, with each guest nominating and selecting their best of the best in various categories. Last night, Alan Davies was in the selector's chair, and quickly demonstrated one problem with the structure of the programme, which is that there's no proof in comedy. Davies had nominated Dave Allen as Best Male Comic, on the strength of a live West End performance he once saw. But, of course, there was no clip of that, and even if there had been it may not have made his case for him. It doesn't hugely matter, though, because Bailey is affable and funny enough to fill the gaps - on great form last night pretending to sulk about one of Davies's other nominations, the "sexy little jazz weasel" Noel Fielding, who once bumped him off a captain's slot on Never Mind the Buzzcocks.

A dreadful debut comedy vehicle for the seasoned stand-up comic. Although there is nothing wrong with its traditional format of a few studio-bound routines intercut with sketches - it's worked for everyone from Dave Allen to Stewart Lee - here it feels painfully strained and old-fashioned.

Amos is likeable enough, but his material is woefully pedestrian I curdled with embarrassment when he dragged up as his mother, a presumably recurring character that should never have been allowed.

Comedy doesn't always have to be cutting-edge or biting, but it should never resemble a forgotten mainstream comedy flop from 1983.

Dave Allen broke into British TV on Val Doonican's BBC TV show in the mid-1960s, soon graduating to a series of his own where a relaxed raconteur style, cigarette in one hand, glass of whisky in the other, distracted from his daring in choice of topics. Sex, death and religion were well within his witty compass and all, from time to time, got him into trouble with the press. He's been followed by observational comics such as Jack Dee, Dara O'Briain and tonight's presenter Ed Byrne, but he was funnier than any of them.

My abiding memory of Irish comedian Dave Allen, apart from his pointedly perceptive and very funny 1970s-80s TV show, was seeing him perform his live stand-up (or in his case sit-down stand-up) in the early 1990s. During the course of two hours, in his usual relaxed demeanour, he talked about sex, religion, the Irish, and his teenage son - and it was hilarious - so much so that my sides literally did hurt by the end. So it's fitting that Radio 2's comedy season includes this celebration of the much missed Allen, who died in 2005. Fellow Dubliner and stand-up Ed Byrne is the guide to the career of a man whose taboo-breaking observations about death and particularly the Catholic Church established him as an alternative comedian before the term had even been coined.

Stewart Lee is a raconteur who might remind you of Dave Allen; he's clever, discursive and very funny. Though best known for co-writing Jerry Springer: The Opera, which made him the focus of a national hate campaign, Lee is a gifted stand-up with a laconic style. In the first instalment of a new series, his subject is books in general and so-called "celebrity hardbacks" in particular, which allows Lee, who looks a bit like a very young, very tired Morrissey, to give Jeremy Clarkson and Chris Moyles both barrels. I loved his dismissal of the latter's second autobiographical volume, The Difficult Second Book, as a title that showed "a degree of irony and self-awareness largely absent from the text". The sketches that smatter the show don't work very well (they never did for Dave Allen, either), but just go with the flow, because everything else works a treat.

I'm afraid The Omid Djalili Show was not as good as the torrent of advance publicity suggested. In the past, Djalili has proved himself a fine comedian, neatly combining his Iranian background with his current status as a middle-class Englishman to explore the two cultures - and, more importantly, to be funny. Saturday's show, by contrast, was just a great big mess.

Going for a Dave Allen mix of sketches and gags, it ended up misfiring on both counts. The sketches were generally overlong, and often uninspired to start with. The stand-up stuff had its moments - but never seemed sure whether it wanted to play with stereotypes or simply rely on them. Djalili still came across as an interesting and likeable man, and as a good actor. Nonetheless, some serious script-editing is badly needed if the series is going to do him anything like justice.