Harry Enfield

Didn't he dress up as a gay man, a woman in a fur coat? That's what people say at the start of David Walliams's tribute to "a light entertainment icon". Then, intercut with soundtrack, it sounds as if he's interviewing the man himself. Emery died in 1983, having been a fixture in broadcast comedy for decades. "He was a good old-fashioned pro," says Michael Grade. "He loved going to work." So why did he fall out of fashion? Walliams explores that and why today's comedians, himself and Harry Enfield among them, still admire him.

Al Murray's Multiple Personality Disorder is another sketch show to add to the pile; this one less interested in being knowingly hip or an intentional cult, and more a throwback to the mainstream Harry Enfield days of the early-'90s.

Al Murray thankfully rests his increasingly tiresome Pub Landlord persona, and instead gives us a confection of colourful characters. Hit-and-miss is always the phrase applies to sketch comedy, and so it comes to be used here. Murray is an amusing fellow, and there's good support from comedians Simon Brodkin and Jenny Eclair - but only a few sketches stuck in my mind: a married couple who converse in radio advert lingo, dastardly gentleman thief Barrington Blowtorch, and some politically-correct policemen. Worryingly, half the sketches were very thin, obvious or dumb (like a Geordie pretending to be gay to perv on his sexy friend, or a baby in a high-powered business meeting), while a character called Herr Schull (a gay Nazi in pink uniform) was a rather uncomfortable and vaguely homophobic caricature I thought we left behind in the '70s with Benny Hill.

Ruddy Hell, It's Harry and Paul was distinctly patchy, but the re-titled Harry and Paul showcased some of the best stuff the pair has done for years.

What a sinful joy, therefore, to meet the incorrigibly optimistic American tourists we all know and avoid in the last Harry and Paul (BBC1). The British caff was so quiet you could hear the cheese curling.

Diplomatic storm over Harry Enfield's 'slur on a nation

His comedy has not always been to everyone's taste. But now Harry Enfield has managed to upset an entire nation. The 47-year-old comedian has caused a diplomatic incident with the Philippines with his BBC1 series Harry And Paul.

Philippines angry at Enfield show

Comedian Harry Enfield's BBC show has been labelled 'disgraceful and distasteful' by members of the Philippine community in the UK.

Last Thursday the second six-week series of Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency began on Radio 4, with our intergalactic sleuth (Harry Enfield, still perfect) somewhat down on his luck and obliged to dress up as a gypsy woman and tell fortunes. Come and warm yourself by this sprig of flaming white heather, he enjoined a record company executive being stalked by a couple of demons. They arranged to meet the following morning at 6.30 so that Gently could save the terrified man from a fate worse than death. Gently overslept and the man disappeared. Ah well, Gently said, philosophically.

The first series of new Paul Whitehouse and Harry Enfield sketches, which bore the prefix Ruddy Hell!, was so flabbily disappointing that expectations were low for the new run. That's worked in their favour because series two has been surprisingly good, with Mr I Saw You Coming, the ageing rap DJs and the posh scaffolders all hitting the spot.

Series two of Dirk Maggs's brilliant dramatisation and production of Douglas Adams's cosmic sleuth, and if the first episode is anything to go by the next six weeks of The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul should just surf by on a wave of surreal laughter.

It has to be admitted that knowing the book probably helps the listener to follow the plot, which seems at this early stage to be a bit all over the place.

We find Dirk Gently (Harry Enfield again, wonderful again) somewhat on his uppers (a scene in which he prizes the arrival of an envelope containing a charity appeal for the free pen that comes with it - very Ed Reardon). We also discover that Odin, Thor and other gods have been reduced to appearing in commercials. No doubt it will all start to come together next week. But even if it doesn't, who cares?

After some time out, the pair have joined forces again for a show that I can only describe as 'quite enjoyable'. I know that doesn't seem like much, but it's about right. You see, some of the new characters created by the pair are really fun to watch, although, not laugh-your-lungs-up funny.

Sadly, for each sketch I enjoy, there's one to irritate. The posh builders drive me stir-mental, with their alarming predictability. As jokes go, it's pretty one-dimensional.