Frankie Boyle

Frankie Boyle's return to TV: what did you make of it?

The controversial comic is now free of the BBC straitjacket - but has Channel 4 just given him enough rope to hang himself?

Bad luck Daily Mail. We hate to be the bearer of bad news but its favourite new hate figure, Frankie Boyle, had 1.3 million viewers tune into his new Channel 4 show Tramadol Nights last night but only drew, wait for it, 10 complaints. Better get looking at the messageboards instead chaps.

Glaswegian comedian Frankie Boyle's controversial interjections on Mock The Week turned that show into must-see TV for many, and his loss made the show immediately less infamous. There's certainly a place for Boyle's brand of "shock comedy" on network television, particularly in a landscape currently dominated by family-friendly comics like Michael McIntyre, Rhod Gilbert and John Bishop. Sadly, Frankie Boyle's Tramadol Nights is a horrendous mess, on the evidence of its first episode.

It uses a tried-and-trusted format: stand-up comedy interspersed with sketches. What's unfortunate is that (a) Boyle's stand-up routines are taken directly from his recent tour, meaning many fans will have heard the jokes before, and (b) the sketches were idiotic attempts at shocking people that dragged on past their natural end points. The first sketch, running with the idea that David Hasselhoff's character in Knight Rider was mentally ill, was perhaps the worst offender - a target 25 years out of date, a stupid idea you'd expect from a schoolboy, producing a sketch that seemed to last forever. Other sketches included candid camera spoof "Hide Me, I've Killed A Kid", an animated "George Michael's Highway Code" (topical?) and a bizarre parody of The Green Mile where the black character's supernatural power came from... raping people?

Tramadol Nights was objectionable in a way it wasn't aiming for; a show with zero intelligence behind it. I could scarcely believe Frankie Boyle's the bearded ringmaster of this tripe, as the prospect of a Channel 4 comedy from him was a delicious prospect up until last night. Too much of its sketches were pale excuses for Boyle to visually enact jokes that work better in the minds of an audience being told them verbally. At the very least, someone should have reminded Boyle that a sketch works best if it's less than two-minutes long, not twice that.

The sole positive: you don't need to buy Frankie Boyle's DVD as a stocking filler this Christmas, because it seems likely all of its material will be served up here each week.

It's not a widely held sentiment but, occasionally, you could feel slightly sorry for Frankie Boyle, someone who's now more famous for being controversial than for actually being funny. Still, anyone who describes Jonathan Ross as "a £500 haircut on top of a pile of melting ice cream" can't be entirely bad, a fact you hope is borne out by this mix of sketches and live material.

Former Mock the Week regular Frankie Boyle has repeatedly courted controversy with his near-the-knuckle jibes. This new mix of sketches and stand-up is unlikely to be to everyone's taste, but let's hope it shows there's more to Boyle's acerbic comedy than merely getting laughs by causing offence.

He was known as the "dark heart" of Mock the Week. Fans of the sharp-suited, razor-tongued Scotsman Frankie Boyle think the hit BBC panel show has been flatlining ever since he quit.

So, if you've missing out on the kind of jokes that make you wince while laughing, don't miss this live extravaganza of foul-mouthed comedy from a man who loves to shock, and who readily admits to being quite happy to punch every one of his audience in the face or reach through the TV and strangle them.

You might not want to watch this with your Gran. Frankie's jokes about his homeland, modern culture, Kerry Katona and all manner of popular targets will not be for the easily offended.

Have you heard the one about vicar's son Miles Jupp?

Forget Frankie Boyle, Russell Brand and the comedy of shock. Stand-up is cleaning up its act and getting politer. A growing band of dissenting comedians out there do not tell smutty stories and crude gags - and the leading light of this new wave of niceness is Miles Jupp, a divinity graduate and son of a United Reform minister.

Continuing its post-Amstell coping strategy of a HIGNFY-style rotating host, Buzzcocks is back for a 24th series, showing more longevity than most of the popstars it has on it. The surprisingly affable Mark Ronson takes the chair and attempts to rein in returning team leaders Phill Jupitus and Noel Fielding[, who get Alesha Dixon, Mollie King from the Saturdays, Tinie Tempah and Paul Foot as their guests. Future hosts look likely to include Josh Groban, Tim Westwood and Frankie Boyle. No Dappy from N-Dubz?

Frankie Boyle goes on the offensive with solo Channel 4

Late-night mixture of standup and sketches includes parody soap opera mocking BBC's reluctance to cause offence.

Frankie Boyle dismisses comedy controversy

Frankie Boyle has dismissed the suggestion that his work is truly controversial.