Hattie Jacques

Sykes, who died in July aged 89, was a master at teasing big laughs from unpromising material: a plank, a missing cat, fishing... And he was steeped in comedy greatness, writing for Hancock and Howerd, and collaborating with Spike Milligan on The Goon Show.

But it's for his TV sitcoms (Sykes and a... in the 60s, just plain Sykes in the 70s), that he's probably best remembered. He, Hattie Jacques as sister Hat and Deryck Guyler as local policeman Corky, made a formidable, beloved trio.

He overcame disability and a tough upbringing to earn massive respect among his peers. Eddie Izzard and Michael Palin are among those to doff their caps.

This tribute to Eric Sykes, one of Britain's best-loved comedy actors and writers, who died in July, forms an evening of programmes dedicated to the man. An episode from series seven of his sitcom Sykes - in which the lofty Eric and the cuddly Hattie Jacques played an unlikely pair of oddly sexless twins, leading fanciful lives in Sebastopol Terrace, Acton - follows at 10.30pm, plus a repeat of an Arena documentary at 10.55pm.

The comedy writer and actor had a career in film, TV and radio that spanned more than 50 years, and saw him work with Tony Hancock, among many others. Sykes was part of a new wave of comedy and was catapulted to fame in the postwar years when hit shows such as Variety Bandbox and Educating Archie made him the highest-paid comedy writer in the country. His popularity continued as he became one of the brains behind The Goons and Sykes ran for a further 20 years. Comedians Eddie Izzard and Russ Abbot, Monty Python star Michael Palin, entertainer Bruce Forsyth and film director Mike Newell are just some of the celebrities paying their respects to a man whose comic influence will continue to be felt for many years to come.

I had seen the hat before, I was sure of it. Mr Khan's, that is, from Citizen Khan. So I Googled it and sure enough, it was the very same hat worn by the Asian man in Mind Your Language - not the one with the turban but the other one who smiled unctuously and shook his head from side to side every time he spoke. Mr Khan didn't shake his head in the same way, but he may as well have done, and he certainly wore the same hat, which must have been gathering dust in ITV's costume cupboard since the late 1970s, before being taken up now, three decades later, by the BBC.

In fact, the whole show seemed like it was stuck in a 1970s time warp. If the BBC's billing of it as the channel's first British Muslim comedy series had intended to give it some edge, this first episode quickly dispelled the spin. There was even a mention of Mr Mainwaring, from Dad's Army. Perhaps the point was that Mr Khan, a pompous community leader from Sparkhill, in Birmingham, was stuck in the past, but did this mean the jokes had to be too?

It's not to say that it was bad comedy, it just wasn't new. The straight-faced homage to sepia-tinted shows was all too transparent. In a scene in which a rotund, lusty woman called Mrs Bilal cornered the quivering Mr Khan in an office, it looked as if she had been directed to play Hattie Jacques (in a headscarf) to his (multicultural) Kenneth Williams. The smutty last line, as Mr Khan bundled her into his car - "Mrs Bilal, get your hand off my gearstick" - might just as well have been written by the scriptwriter for Are You Being Served?.

There were small moments of originality, but sadly, these were just flashes (the British convert, Dave; the Somali man whose accent Mr Khan couldn't understand - "what's he saying?"); and the odd topical joke - after watching News at Ten, Mr Khan proudly announced: "Pakistan was mentioned seven times... two in a good way."

The characters - Mr Khan, his long-suffering wife, his favourite daughter, who donned a headscarf every time he came in the room but was secretly a party girl, and his other daughter, who was preparing for her Big Fat Asian wedding - were such clichés that they may as well have been dragged out of the same dusty costume cupboard as the hat. How far has this come since Goodness Gracious Me? Not far at all. How much more contemporary is it than East Is East, or Bend It Like Beckham? Less so. How much funnier? Same answer.

To help the audience figure out that this was a PAKISTANI family who acted in a very PAKISTANI way, there were PAKISTANI flags on every window. Mr Khan was a tight-fisted old sod who bought mountains of cheap toilet rolls from the Cash & Carry and watered down the washing-up liquid because he was PAKISTANI. Mrs Khan wiped down the plastic cover on the sofa to keep it looking new because she was PAKISTANI. And they were having a wedding in the local mosque because they were all PAKISTANI. Comedy doesn't have a duty to represent real people, but it does need to be funny, and while a family comedy requires a broad appeal, this is no reason to unspool recycled jokes that worked a treat 40 years ago.

Legendary writer Digby Wolfe dies

The legendary writer Digby Wolfe has died after a short battle with cancer. He was born in Britain in 1929 and, before moving to Australia, worked with comedy legends Ronnie Corbett, Hattie Jacques and Charles Hawtrey.

An affectionate tribute to a man described as 'one of those actors who worked all the time but never became a big star', whose knack of stealing the show playing detached authority figures made him the perfect choice for Sergeant Wilson in Dad's Army. Family, friends and Dad's Army cohorts Clive Dunn and Ian Lavender recall not only Le Mesurier's charm but also his remarkable relationships with Hattie Jacques (who left him for a younger man) and actress Joan Malin, who cheated on him with best friend Tony Hancock.

It's 100 years since the birth of John Le Mesurier, which is a good enough reason to take another look at the life of this adored actor.

There's nothing really new in It's All Been Rather Lovely (BBC2, 9pm) but it's nice to be reminded of his laid-back style and his extraordinary private life.

This is the man who briefly lost his wife, Hattie Jacques, to his best friend, comic legend Tony Hancock but who remained close to her.

He even took her back, without ever mentioning the split again.

Best remembered as Sgt Wilson, the Dad's Army star, who died in 1983, has a host of celebs queuing up to tell us what a thoroughly decent chap he was.

This documentary on Dad's Army. star John Le Mesurier contains only one clip when he is not performing - and that's from his appearance on This Is Your Life, honouring his then wife Hattie Jacques.

At the time she was having an affair with her driver John Schofield who she had installed in the family home, moving her husband into another room.

You'd never guess that from his demeanour here, so in a way this was very much another acting job.

His third wife Joan also appears here, talking candidly about her own doomed affair with his best friend Tony Hancock.

So you could say Le Mesurier was proof that nice guys finish last (where love is concerned anyway).

Nobody has a bad word to say here about the man whose perfect manners, playfulness and lack of ambition made him so universally adored.

Dad's Army co-writer Jimmy Perry explains how he was initially infuriated by his slightly negative, laid-back approach to the plum role of Sgt Wilson, who rather than barking orders asks, "Would you mind awfully falling in?" and wished he'd do more with it.

But it was precisely this distracted air that made the character so enduring and soon they were writing Wilson based on Le Mesurier himself.

It's fascinating to hear how he ­cultivated a unique aura of uselessness to the extent that he couldn't even make a cup of tea.

Or how he turned up for his first day in the Army with his dinner jacket, jazz records and golf clubs.

Whether or not that was all just an act too, John Le Mesurier was definitely one of a kind.

Radio Times review

The 36th best TV show of 2011 according to the Radio Times.

A superb example of BBC4's curious but rewarding obsession with mid-ranking, mid-20th Century entertainers, and the misery success brought them. Hattie Jacques, trapped by sexist typecasting and her supportive but inert husband John Le Mesurier, welcomes a sexy young lodger (Aidan Turner) into the family home and proceeds to have an affair with him. As Jacques, Ruth Jones captured the desperation of someone who knows, deep down, that she's destroying herself, but can't quite stop. Robert Bathurst was just as fine as Le Mesurier, who could see what Jacques was doing but couldn't quite rouse himself to prevent her. A sensational-on-paper story became sober, classy and sad.

The film in which Leslie Phillips first uttered his immortal catchphrase: "I say, Ding Dong!" Hattie Jacques is the no-nonsense matron presiding over accident-prone trainee nurse Joan Simms, who decides to get even with an overbearing Colonel by sticking a daffodil up his you know where.

Barbara Windsor's Funny Girls featured an unmistakable voice which works extremely well on radio. Whether sharing a joke with 5 Live's Richard Bacon during the recent coverage of Wimbledon, or filling in for Elaine Paige on Sundays, Windsor always oozes fun and professionalism. In part two of three programmes, she reflected on the life and career of her "old mate" from the Carry On movies, Hattie Jacques.

While the format was somewhat formulaic and occasionally got bogged down in details about Jacques' personal life, this was a moving rollercoaster of a programme as it charted the much-loved performer's professional highs and emotional lows.