Frankie Boyle

Given that he only had enough decent material for one episode, Frankie Boyle really could have done with making his Tramadol Nights series into a one-off special.

Perhaps a half-hour festive programme with the tagline: 'something to offend all the family this Christmas!' would have been a runaway success.

Unfortunately, the third week in the series heralded the second episode in a row that was more gratuitously offensive than it was amusing.

Boyle re-hashed a few gags used only last week involving the supposed gravitational pull of overweight people and there wasn't one sketch that wasn't morally dubious at best. "I'm genuinely surprised I'm getting away with this," he said at one point.

Frankie, my friend, you probably aren't. Give it a few days and Ofcom will be beating down your door once again.

On the plus side, Boyle's stand-up was generally pretty sharp and quite funny and while some viewers might have winced at his one-liners, the audience members seemed perfectly happy to sit back and take in the personal insults.

But instead of starting his writing with the question: 'What will be funny?' he seems to have begun with, 'What's most likely to offend as many people as possible?'

Almost without exception, the sketches were wholly unfunny and the in-house audience seemed to be struggling to raise even the smallest of titters.

However, those who accuse Boyle of being talentless should consider this: during the course of one half-hour television show tonight, Frankie managed to offend grandparents, fat people, Colombians, cancer victims, AIDS victims and victims of sexual abuse... Now that is a unique talent.

While my howls of pain at the continuing run of Frankie Boyle's Tramadol Nights - aka a televised version of the Nirvana b-side I Hate Myself And I Want To Die - were unnoticed, The Morgana Show gets stronger and stronger.

The show by a relative newcomer is full of great characters and solid sketch comedy. Comparisons with Kenny Everett's show with its grotesque gallery of characters and childish desire to shock have been made and they're on the money.

I loved Kenny Everett's schtick as a kid and Morgana carries on that tradition. Her takedowns of Cheryl Cole, Danni Minogue and Fearne Cotton are particularly brilliant. Skip Frankie Boyle's boorish balderdash and watch the Morgana Show instead.

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Too outrageous for Mock The Week, Frankie Boyle has got his own show now. It's on Channel 4 so he's free from the BBC's post-Sachsgate compliance rules and can be even more offensive and even funnier, yes? Presumably that's the concept of Frankie Boyle's Tramadol Nights. I wasn't offended by any of the jokes in the opener; I just didn't find them very funny. Rules can be daft but they can force a comedian to work harder and be more clever. No need here.

"How ya doin', ya big f****n' Loyalist terrorist suspect?" These were Boyle's first words, aimed at a formidable, shaven-headed man in the audience. He also called the delighted victim a "big gun-running bisexual". Then Catholics got it, then all religious groups. Then gay people (they got it a lot), then John Leslie, George Michael, Ryanair, the Japanese and the mentally ill before finally Boyle cracked a joke I can repeat in a family newspaper, where he lamented the somewhat one-dimensional nature of The Jeremy Kyle Show: "He rounds up his audiences by firing tranquiliser darts into Farmfoods. There's never an edition called I Wanted To Go To Tuscany, You Swine!"

The stage routine was interspersed with filmed sketches which showed up his limitations as a comic actor. I say stage, but the set was a rooftop in the style of a classic movie. As Frankie got more and more enraged, I thought he was going to do a Jimmy Cagney and, in a nod to White Heat, blow himself up. Maybe next time.

Hands up anyone who's heard of Morgana Robinson. Despite her near invisibility on the comedy radar, Channel 4 has obviously decided Morgana is The Next Big Thing and commissioned an entire series based on... what, exactly?

Judging by the first episode, the answer would appear to be her ability to match Frankie Boyle in the use of the f-word, and her passable imitations of Fearne Cotton and Cheryl Cole. Sadly her own characters are little more than lazy, one-dimensional stereotypes that merely limp off the page.

Robinson's most "famous" creation, 14-year-old Gilbert the uber-nerd who's attempting to make a video diary with the help of his granddad, has apparently already garnered a following on YouTube. Despite the standard-issue geek clothes and inch-thick lenses, however, Gilbert barely passes for 17, never mind 14. Robinson also takes whining teenspeak to such a level that the dialogue is basically indecipherable.

Some sketches, like the bickering TV reporters, are mercifully short. Others, most notably Madolynn the past-it Hollywood starlet making a complete fool of herself in a restaurant, drag on interminably. Vicious drunks are not funny, particularly with lines like "This toe was caressed by Martin Scorsuzu". Even less tasteful is an attempt by her husband Norman to excuse her behaviour. As she topples off her chair, taking the tablecloth and crockery with her, he turns to their mortified companions and mutters "She has Asperger's". Boyle would have been proud.

Equally unlikeable are Joyce and Barry Dickens, funeral directors from Chumley, Yorkshire. Barry is a mine of useless information who never shuts up, much to the annoyance of acid-tongued wife Joyce, who never misses an opportunity to tell him what an absolute cretin he is. "You know the Aztecs used to burn stupid people, Barry". And what could be more hilarious that watching the two of them get all lovey dovey during a memorial service while the poor unfortunate corpse has his legs sticking out because Barry is too much of a dozy git to pick the right size of coffin.

The annoying commuter on a train who shrieks into his mobile the entire journey, a couple of senile Chelsea Pensioners who appear to have wandered in from a Harry Enfield/Paul Whitehouse sketch, Lady Gaga attempting to steer a riding mower in some kind of bizarre headgear - on it goes, all accompanied by the obligatory canned laughter. Heaven knows if it was performed in front of a live audience the silence would have been deafening.

Robinson's talents obviously lie in impersonation rather than straight acting - the highlight, such as it was, of the first programme was a 12-year-old Boris Johnson attempting to win a prep school debate by running roughshod over the opposing team. But alas she is no Catherine Tate - the lack of memorable characters does nothing but drag the show down.

If The Morgana Show had started out as a one-off pilot, and Robinson and co-creator James De Frond had been given a chance to fine-tune the sketches over time, the show might have evolved into something passable. But dumping her in at the deep end with a whole series to fill just highlights the weakness of the material. Back to the drawing board on this one.

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