Ian McKellen

Ian McKellen: acting, accents, Damian Lewis & his voice

The Hobbit/ actor thinks he overacted for Vicious's live studio audience and sympathises with gay A-listers who won't come out.

I am a great supporter of this out-and-proud, vulgar and loud sitcom, so it's a shame to report that this festive edition is below par.

Derek Jacobi and Ian McKellen's characters, Stuart and Freddie, do little but swish and snipe, and Iwan Rheon is completely wasted as gormless neighbour Ash who, inevitably, bungles their Christmas dinner. So it's left to the women in their lives to save the programme.

Frances de la Tour is in top gear as Violet the man-eater who's recently become a masseuse, while Marcia Warren butts in with the best lines as the forgetful Penelope, who suddenly remembers something very important.

Video: Behind the scenes on sitcom Vicious

Sir Ian McKellen and Sir Derek Jacobi talk about working on ITV sitcom Vicious, where the pair play a gay couple who constantly snipe at each other.

If awkwardness were an Olympic event, Arthur Strong would be a gold medallist. The music-hall aficionado staggers around as if glued to an ironing board, and has to forcibly eject words as if passing a kidney stone. Like that other fully realised comic character John Shuttleworth, he polarises opinion, but to his loyal fans the Count is cryingly funny.

There are shades of Hancock this week as our delusional artiste lands a part in a radio play (the way he deflates the pseuds' corner of a read-through is delicious). As in previous weeks, the plot is small but neat. And the modern practice of injecting dramatic heft into sitcom (Tom Hollander in Rev, Ian McKellen and Derek Jacobi in Vicious and now Rory Kinnear as Arthur's unfortunate new best friend) is paying rich rewards. The series has been recomissioned after just one episode - take note, Ben Elton. Long live Count Arthur!

Vicious (ITV) exited as it entered, a high-camp frolic with Ian McKellen and Derek Jacobi hamming it up like there was no tomorrow. The unapologetic portrayal of old-school gayness got up noses in some quarters, cited as evidence that TV has still not embraced sexual equality. Queerly, to me, it felt like the exact opposite.

The existence of Vicious seemed to suggest that TV was comfortable enough in its own skin to not give two figs about only showing a politically correct approved version of gay lifestyles.

Freddie and Stuart were riotous throwbacks, bitchy old queens from another era, but in between the barbs and the one-liners, these were recognisable characters. To deny their existence would surely be the politically incorrect thing.

Taken on its own level as a tribute to the old tradition of West End farce, McKellen and Jacobi's Vicious was worth a cheap laugh, an added treat being the presence of Marcia Warren and Frances de la Tour, who really should have a show of their own. And how refreshing to have a man in his seventies tell his mother-in-law: 'You're old, you're eating buttons.' Now that's anti-ageism.

The waspish insults are flying around with gay abandon as cranky lovebirds Stuart (Derek Jacobi) and Freddie (Ian McKellen) hurtle to the end of this camp caper with a party to celebrate their 49th year of bitchy bliss. Drama queen Freddie harbours fond notions of Dame Judi Dench turning up for the festivities. After all, they once spent 12 hours eating chocolates together on a sweeties ad. As for Stuart, young neighbour Ash has put him in a really tight spot...

Though never quite as outrageous - or funny - as advertised, the first series of this ITV sitcom has remained watchable thanks to the hammed-up, camped-up performances of its leads Ian McKellen and Derek Jacobi. The final episode of the show's current run is on Monday and features another high-profile thesp in Judi Dench.

This is the strangest episode so far, as Stuart (Derek Jacobi) and Freddie (Ian McKellen) invite young Ash (Iwan Rheon) and his new girlfriend Chloe (Alexandra Roach) to dinner and then behave abominably towards her.

Trouble is, Chloe is lovey-dovey, airy-fairy, vegan and teetotal - in short, incredibly annoying - but before long the wicked pair have brought out her own vicious streak. I don't want to oversell the comedy, because a lot of it is lame, but the tone veers towards Joe Orton.

This is also the show to turn to if you've longed to see Frances de la Tour (Violet) handcuffed to a bed in Argentina dressed in PVC bondage gear. Any takers?

This loud and proud sitcom has dismayed many viewers and critics, although a lot of them are criticising it for being exactly what it's trying to be: catty, broad, stagey and old-fashioned. There's almost no depth behind the barbs thrown around by Ian McKellen and Derek Jacobi, who have enormous fun as a constantly warring couple. You have to just surrender and try to enjoy it as much as they evidently are.

Which camp are you in - lover or loather? If the latter, you've probably already given up on Vicious, a show that's divided viewers and critics. But if you accept and revel in the fact that Stuart and Freddie are two gay men unabashed in their extravagant mannerisms and insults, which only the unimaginative would condemn as stereotypical, then enjoy because this series gets funnier, naughtier and, importantly, kinder to its characters.

Oddly, I'm now suffering from the delusion that Ian McKellen and Derek Jacobi are in reality an item, have been for five decades, and this must be how they carry on in private.

Tonight, Ash invites his elderly chums to a nightclub in Soho. Actorly Freddie proves a big hit, but when a young woman makes a pass at Stuart, narcoleptic Penelope (Marcia Warren) comes out with four short words that almost stop the show.