Iwan Rheon

The sight of nice Rudy lactating is just one of the oddball pleasures to be savoured as the curtain comes down on the orange-boiler-suited community service superpower drama after five inventive and largely joyous seasons. Robert Sheehan, Iwan Rheon, Antonia Thomas and Karla Crome are just four of the young actors to benefit from a career leg-up in this show - and here's hoping it's not long before the comedically gifted current star Joe Gilgun lights up the screen again.

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?

The histrionics are in full flow when Freddie goes for an audition on Downton Abbey, although his only line of dialogue involves potatoes. The notion of Ian McKellen being up for such a small role is in itself funny, and the scene where Freddie sits gauche young Ash (Iwan Rheon) down for his first acting lesson is priceless.

Freddie and Stuart live up to the promise of the title tonight. They're in waspish mood, not just to each other and Ash but also to Violet - Frances de la Tour getting the best lines. "A lot of acting is just good hair," she avers, while seeking solace for a failed affair with Christoph: "He'd fly me to Hungary once a month to do... unspeakable things."

I think I must be missing something. I thought comedies were supposed to be funny, to engage us in humour and laughter and make us smile. But Vicious did none of the above. In fact, I watched it rather stony-faced wondering whether I was missing the point. Had something just gone over my head?

Am I not witty/clever enough to "get" the jokes? Or was this sitcom starring two British acting legends - Sir Derek Jacobi and Sir Ian McKellan no less - just simply dreadful? Um, well, yes. It was the latter, I'm afraid.

From the outset, with its Communards title music, I felt like I was watching something I'd already seen. It felt so old and tired, it almost made me cross. Now I'm not normally a grumpy person (honestly I'm not) but a programme like this really irritates.

The two leads actors, who have played the likes of Gandalf, Magneto, Cadfael and Claudius between them, played Freddie and Stuart, a couple who have been together for 50 years and who were essentially two old drama queens, bickering and antagonising each other, while trying to flirt with their young neighbour Ash (Iwan Rheon).

There was awful lot of canned laughter involved (because I doubt a studio audience would have made any sound at all) and it would have been much better suited for the stage than the telly.

There was a high level of camp bitchiness with quips between the two leads and their supporting cast, Francis de la Tour and Marcia Warren, but it felt like McKellan and Jacobi were performing more to a half empty theatre than a prime time TV audience. Nothing was very believable and it all came across as a bit stupid, unnecessary and terribly cliched.

Laugh? Nope, not once.

Tonight, Freddie and Stuart emerge from their fusty flat to visit - for them - an alarmingly bright clothing store to buy a smart overcoat. Freddie, an actor whose ego is far more swollen than his CV, needs to look his finest for a Doctor Who screening - "I have been voted the tenth most popular villain of all time!" he coos, making the most of this dubious accolade.

What gives this a curious subtext is that Ian McKellen actually did voice a baddie in Doctor Who last Christmas, while Derek Jacobi played number-one villain, the Master, quite thrillingly in 2007 and has attended several conventions himself.

A torrent of tart asides, camp banter and even dog prodding flows in this terrific new comedy. Frances de la Tour is magnificent as Stuart and Freddie's man-eating pal, Violet, whose "rather broad tastes" will extend even to Who fans. Meanwhile, she's panting after their neighbour Ash, takes him shopping too and tries to get him into a pair of Speedos - all of which allows Ash (former Misfits star Iwan Rheon) to appear less gormless than last week.

Radio Times review

Vicious (ITV Player) put Derek Jacobi and Ian McKellen on a standard stage/sitcom lounge set - front door on the left, swing door to the kitchen on the right, stairs in the background - and let them howl and scratch for half an hour as Freddie and Stuart, who had been lovers for more than 50 years and had now settled into their bitter, argumentative dotage on the sofa.

The challenge was to enjoy the proceedings as much as the two stars, as McKellen ripped through scores of searingly bitchy lines, peaking with a cracker about Stuart "pouring your blandness over every surface", while Jacobi freed his right arm to become one of the campest limbs ever seen on TV.

Many viewers really, really didn't enjoy Vicious, throwing all sorts of criticisms that largely bounced off. It was stagey, retro and gaudy, they said, pointing out all the things it was actively trying to be. It entrenched gay stereotypes, they said, looking to a riotous sitcom for assiduous social realism. It used canned laughter, they said, referring to the live studio audience.

The complaint that had merit was that jokes mentioning rape are basically never funny, even if Frances de la Tour as fag-hag Violet fretting about virile young neighbour Ash (Iwan Rheon) was cartoonish and abstract enough to be as near to harmless as they come, as well as being sinfully well timed. (McKellen: "For God's sake Violet, nobody wants to rape you!" De la Tour: "What an awful thing to say.")

The line still should have been taken out, and was evidence that Vicious might not have a heart, which means it'll drag as soon as the one-liners falter. But while it's steaming, Vicious is hot.

This first episode deals with the passing of one of the couple's friends who was supposedly infatuated with Freddie. But later it transpires that he was actually in love with Stuart and this sets off a blazing row between the pair. Eventually the duo are reconciled but I get the impression that this is the formula that the series will take every week. The problem with Vicious is that it is incredibly old-fashioned and mainly survives due to the chemistry between its two leads. While McKellen and Jacobi appear to be having a ball, the scripts are very weak and there is only so many times you can hear the pair insult each other.

The supporting roles are woefully underwritten with Frances De La Tour given very little in her role as the waspish Violet. Meanwhile Iwan Rheon, who was so great in Misfits, looks embarrassed most of the time and his character Ash is basically presented as a piece of meat for the older characters to salivate over.

It doesn't surprise me that Vicious lost a million viewers during its half hour slot as I think people would've grown tired of the programme by the end. While some people seemed to enjoy it, I personally felt that this was very old-fashioned and not particularly funny.

What a line-up for a sitcom; three of our most accomplished actors - Ian McKellen, Derek Jacobi and Frances de la Tour - star, and the writers are the super-talented playwright Mark Ravenhill and Gary Janetti, who used to work on Will & Grace, one of the classiest comedies on American television in decades. And what do you get? Well, not quite the laugh fest that it might have been (or may yet become), but an opener that had a reasonable hit rate.

Vicious is another back-to-the-future comedy, a one-room sitcom with two of the queeniest gay men to grace our screens since the dear departed Larry Grayson and John Inman. If Dick Emery's Clarence had made an appearance he wouldn't have looked out of place and, with De la Tour's presence, it could be called Rising Camp (sadly not my line - I nicked it).

Freddie (McKellen) and Stuart (Jacobi) are a bickering, gossipy gay couple who live in crepuscular gloom in their Covent Garden flat. Freddie is a never-has-been actor ("You may have seen me in a scene in Doctor Who") who has long since lost his Wigan accent; Stuart is a one-time barman who is still not out to his mother. He's waiting for the right time - "It's been 48 years!" cries Freddie.

Into the flat upstairs moves the attractive youngster Ash (Iwan Rheon), who attracts appreciative looks both from the men and their faghag friend Violet (De la Tour); most of last night's episode concerned their convoluted attempts to find out if he was gay or straight. Don't people just ask if they're interested to know?

The cast are clearly having fun with the bitchy lines, but Jacobi is overdoing the flounce and Ash is as yet underwritten. Too much of Vicious relies on tired comedy tropes; older people are gagging to have sex with people young enough to be their grandchildren, they don't know anything about youth culture ("Is Zac Efron a person or a place?" Violet asks); or they're deaf, dotty and fall asleep easily. Oh please. As for the double rape "joke" everyone involved should be ashamed of themselves, including director Ed Bye.

On the evidence of last night's first episode Ravenhill and Janetti can't decide if Vicious is lazy retro fun for all the family, or an edgy post-watershed show that's taking us to places never previously negotiated on British TV. Let's hope it's the latter over its seven-week run.

Ian McKellen and Derek Jacobi have a ball as a bitching couple living in a cobwebbed, sepulchral flat, lusting after hunky new neighbour Iwan Rheon, confiding in best friend Frances De La Tour and hamming it up wherever possible. It's a very traditional studio sitcom setup, made watchable by its stars and enjoyable by a waspish script. Also, in its combination of old age and homosexuality, it could be argued to have broken a little ground. Not that creators Mark Ravenhill and Gary Janetti much care about that: this show is all about low blows and easy laughs - at which it excels.

If you want to watch a couple of knights slinging bitchy dialogue at each other, Monday nights now offer a surprising alternative to Game Of Thrones.

Sir Ian McKellen and Sir Derek Jacobi star in this fabulous new sitcom which is, believe it or not, even better than the trailers promised.

Together for nearly half a century, Freddie and Stuart are like an old married couple, bound together by their mutual dislike. But they love each other really, of course. I think.

Every line is a belter, which is absolutely what you'd expect when you find out its creators are American Gary Janetti (writer and producer of Will & Grace[/o] and one of the [i]Family Guy writing team) and playwright Mark Ravenhill, who once said he'd be happy never to write another gay character again. I'm glad he changed his mind.

While gay relationships have long been just another part of the furniture on TV, there's never been one like Freddie and Stuart's and certainly not one so perfectly acted.

Frances de la Tour, who plays their friend - would-be maneater Violet - is something of a revelation too. It's taken 35 years but she's finally got another TV role as memorable as her Miss Jones from Rising Damp.

Young Iwan Rheon (Misfits, Games Of Thrones) is set to brighten up all their lives when he moves in to the flat upstairs.