David Jason

This is David Jason's first new comedy series in 20 years - but what a disappointment it turns out to be.

It was written by Justin Sbresni and Mark Bussell - the creators of The Worst Week Of My Life - but the humour feels creaky and out-dated.

In a set-up suspiciously reminiscent of Rowan Atkinson's hapless spy Johnny English, Jason stars as Guy Hubble who is mistakenly promoted from the Buckingham Palace car park detail to head of Royal security, only to make a predictable hash of everything he touches.

In the first episode tonight, he's at a hotel in Scotland trying to foil an assassination attempt on the Queen.

Just as there are plenty of viewers out there who remain inexplicably enthralled by New Tricks, I suppose there might be a ready-made audience who are prepared to laugh at the sight of Jason in his Y-fronts. I can't see the attraction myself.

Interview: David Jason, actor

We've loved him as Del Boy and Jack Frost, and this Christmas David Jason returns to the small screen with another hit - an old-fashioned comedy about a bumbling royal bodyguard.

David Jason on comedy career & not pushing boundaries

The star of The Royal Bodyguard is not keen on swearing, violence - or interviews, he tells Andrew Duncan.

David Jason plays a bumbling buffoon called Guy Hubble, who becomes an accidental hero when, as Head of Security at Buckingham Palace, he rescues the Queen from her runaway carriage.

Hubble is appointed to guard his sovereign at all times. But everyone knows he's an idiot, including the high-up who appointed him (the magnificent Geoffrey Whitehead).

This new series is the most undemanding of farces, involving Jason being caught on a balcony in his underwear, hiding under tables and fighting with a suit of armour.

Both far too much and not nearly enough were being asked of David Jason in his new vehicle, a sitcom entitled The Royal Bodyguard (BBC1), in which he plays a royal bodyguard. (That is, a bodyguard to the Queen, not a member of the royal family trying his hand at gainful employment. Sorry. I thought I'd clear that up first in case you were, quite legitimately, slightly fogged after two days of feasting and merriment.)

It was a part that required much gun-in-hand rolling under beds, leaping on to horses and hiding in hostess trollies and not much in the way of droll delivery of verbal gags. Writing the part for - or giving it to - Jason was to play to all of his weaknesses and none of his strengths. Superbly comically deft and nimble, no one could claim - even before he turned 71 - that he was an athletic actor. It's all in the timing and fleeting flickers across his vividly labile face. Don't give him broad slapstick - unless it's That Fall, 30 years ago, through That Bar - it's too agonising a waste.

Beyond that, the best way to describe The Royal Bodyguard is that for those that like that sort of thing, this is the sort of thing they like. People saying "Please tell me it's not Hubble, sir" and it turning out to be Hubble. Hubble trying to eat a whole lobster with a knife and fork. A man described by his superiors as "a walking disaster" accidentally saving the Queen from an assassination attempt to their furious disbelief (you almost expected an instruction to "Press the red button if you want comedy steam graphics coming out of their ears!") and so, terribly on. The best the spirit of Christmas can lead me to say about it is no more.

Sit back, pour yourself an after-dinner drink and enjoy a really good laugh as David Jason presents Christmas clips from The Goon Show, Morecambe and Wise, Only Fools and Horses and The Royle Family. And there are even a few choice words from Ronnie Corbett.

David Jason believes royals will approve comedy

Sir David Jason believes his new comedy will meet with royal approval.

The spirit of Clouseau lives on in Guy Hubble (David Jason - looking a tad aged for some of these stunts, bless him), an incompetent chosen as head of security at the Palace. He got the job because he saved the Queen from a runaway carriage, having accidentally scared the horses in the first place. If your idea of hilarity is Mr Bean, or Jason falling through the pub bar in Only Fools and Horses, then look no further.

Inexplicably scheduled at an hour when the audience most likely to appreciate it has long been tucked up in bed, this exceedingly silly six-parter stars national treasure David Jason as Capt Guy Hubble, a lifelong soldier and ageing bungler promoted to head Buckingham Palace security. Fortunately, the world's terrorists display an incompetence that outshines even Hubble's ineptitude.

David Jason on first BBC comedy role in 20 years

The Royal Bodyguard is 71-year-old David Jason's first comedy for the BBC for 20 years, but he says he has never really strayed far from the genre.