Jack Dee

And if we're looking to invent new words and phrases, how about "Crap as A Comedy Roast"? You'd use it to describe something that was as awkward and contrived and joyless as Jimmy Carr and chums spending an hour taking the p*** out of someone semi-famous sat opposite them on stage.

"Roasting" is an American tradition: being brutally but lovingly rounded upon by your peers while taking it all with benign grace - think: This is Your Life, You Stupid T***. The US TV version of this features some of the most staggeringly lewd, vicious punchlines I've ever heard, the enormous capacity of Pamela Anderson's vagina, for example, being a recurring theme on hers.

So what was in store for Bruce Forsyth, Sharon Osbourne and Chris Tarrant? Uncomfortable oddness, really. Jonathan Ross visibly rattled Brucey with some opening salvos: "He wasn't a pretty baby," he tells the audience, "but he did grow up to be a f***ing ugly adult." What else? Oh yeah: "When the dinosaurs died out, he was taken in for questioning." Arf! The weird thing was that most of the roasters were just typical gun-for-hire, Channel 4-type comedian fodder. Paddy McGuinness did a nervous Who Wants to be a Millionaire? skit on Tarrant, who looked so prickly throughout that you suspect Alan Partridge would have taken a roasting better. Jack Dee slagged everyone off and looked sadder than usual to be doing it. There was one quite funny joke about it being hard to believe the real Sharon Osbourne is here tonight, "because the real Sharon Osbourne is in a black bin bag round the back of a plastic surgeon's in LA!. And she took it all quite well, mainly because she just hooted like as sozzled nan the entire time.

Maybe everyone else loved it. It just seemed weirdly open and honest. I thought the whole point of being British is that we repress our true feelings, so that when they do pop out they're disguised, perhaps in the form of a witty joke or a song or a droll suicide note. Alternatively, we could just stick to slagging people off behind their backs so that we don't have to pretend to hug them in front of Jimmy Carr afterwards. I don't think A Comedy Roast suits us. If someone can work out a passive-aggressive equivalent, however, we may be in business.

Based on an (apparently) successful US model, the UK version of A Comedy Roast sees a parade of utterly uninteresting "celebrities", faux-insulted by a panel of comedians in a kind of This Is Your Life for the Big Brother generation.

Anyway, last night was Sharon Osbourne's turn. Presumably, her casting had more to do with her availability than her suitability; there can be little other explanation. No one, bar no one, needs to hear another word about her, even if it is from the pleasingly snarled lips of Jack Dee.

It's a shame, really, since some of the gags weren't bad at all. Patrick Kielty gave a particularly enjoyable turn. Who knew he could be so vicious? Even Gok Wan, who surely ranks close to Sharon Osbourne in the overexposure stakes, was pretty good. No, the problem isn't the jokes. It's their subject.

Given the level of venom each episode's victims have to tolerate, it seems unlikely that the show would attract anyone but the desperate or the egotistical. Both of which, frankly, I could do without.

The "roast" is an odd American phenomenon, a sort of testimonial showbiz party during which the guest of honour is mercilessly insulted by fellow celebrities. The tradition began at the Friars Club in New York and was televised as part of The Dean Martin Show in the 1970s, and more recently on Comedy Central. Now Channel 4 is bringing us a British version, Comedy Roast, with Bruce Forsyth as last night's inaugural dishonoree. Jimmy Carr, Jonathan Ross, Jon Culshaw and Jack Dee were among his genial tormentors - a "Who's Who of who was available," as Carr said. It looks as if they went through the Js of some publicist's email address book.

There's a problem with insulting Brucie: it's hard to get beyond his age. "When the dinosaurs died out he was taken in for questioning," said someone. "He's seen Halley's comet three times," said someone else. A lot of the jokes overlapped. Variations on "Nice to see you, to see you nice" abounded. Jonathan Ross said "fuck" a couple of times, but the whole thing lacked the sleazy exuberance of the original format (you can watch the Dean Martin ones on YouTube). Only Bruce himself seemed to catch the spirit of the thing. "That was funny," he shouted at Jack Dee. "I knew you'd make me laugh eventually."

In a merciless variation on a tribute show, a host of comedians and celebrities line up to lampoon Sharon Osbourne. At the start, the host Jimmy Carr compares her to the Queen. "Her children are dysfunctional. Her husband is incoherent and nobody is really sure what she does." Thereafter, the likes of Alan Carr, Ronni Ancona and Louis Walsh take to the podium and let rip about her age, her plastic surgery, her husband, her incontinent dogs, her foul mouth and her fashion mistakes, while she sits at a table and cackles loudly. The highlights of the evening are Ancona reading extracts from Osbourne's new novel, Revenge, and Patrick Kielty risking his life to mock her parenting skills. "What a delightful evening it's been," says a glum Jack Dee.

A comedy roast is a prolonged mickey-take of someone while that someone is still in the room to enjoy the jokes, but from the very first of Jimmy Carr's opening remarks it's clear Sharon Osbourne has her work cut out. The jokes are savage and the language is terrible, as Patrick Kielty, Alan Carr and Jack Dee rip into the former X Factor judge's parenting skills and plastic surgery.

Like a best man speech for a celebrity, the roast - where a famous guest of honour is mercilessly insulted by other celebs - is a long-standing ­tradition in the US. Channel 4 has imported the concept and tonight it's the turn of Sharon Osbourne - a human equivalent of an open goal.

Hosted by Jimmy Carr, this is the funniest and also the rudest hour of TV all week, with Jack Dee, Patrick Kielty, Gok Wan, Alan Carr, Louis Walsh, Ronni Ancona, Keith Lemon and Elton John paying acid-tongued tribute to Sharon's extensive plastic surgery, mothering skills and propensity for sending dog poo to her enemies.

And this put-down from Patrick Kielty shows that nothing is too near to the knuckle. "It's fair to say that Ozzy has never strayed," he quips. "He did once make a dash for freedom but after Sharon cut the brakes on the quad bike, he's now learned his lesson..."

A "roast" in this instance is a kind of good-natured ragging session: the elderly golfing enthusiast is mocked by a panel of comedians, all of whom seem as perplexed as he is as to what they're doing there. Jimmy Carr, not a performer known for his amiability, is the master of ceremonies, seemingly on his best behaviour while a panel including Jack Dee and Barry Cryer share their Brucie-based reminiscences.

Unlike the US version of this show, which can be shockingly vicious and unpleasant (see Joan Rivers's on Monday), there's something rather comforting about Channel 4's effort, which sees tribute paid to Bruce Forsyth through mockery. Despite host Jimmy Carr giving off his usual warmth (reptile in outdoor bath, mid-Siberian winter), it's like watching a series of best man's speeches.

Jonathan Ross, Jack Dee and Barry Cryer all step up to wheel out jokes about how old Brucie is, how rubbish his early career was and how young his wife is. It does sound like irritating vieux chapeau - but it's done with enough classy lines to pass the time. In a comforting way.

For fans of excruciatingly painful television, don't miss Channel 4's Comedy Roasts in which Bruce Forsyth, Sharon Osbourne and Chris Tarrant are ritually insulted by visibly uncomfortable guests including Jonathan Ross, Sean Lock and Jack Dee. A longstanding American showbiz tradition, these British attempts are stilted and embarrassing. The Osbourne edition in particular is like a glimpse into Hell.

Great Ormond Street Hospital is the recipient of this fundraising gala - the biggest live stand-up concert in UK history. And they couldn't have asked for more from the roster of stars who each donated five minutes last week at London's O2 Arena. Some hefty editing will be needed to get this show down to the two-hour running time it's been allotted and if the rude bits from Jonathan Ross and Mark Watson end up on the cutting room floor, then they may survive in the DVD which goes on sale on April 26.

Among those who'll definitely make the cut are, in no particular order, Michael McIntyre, Jack Dee, Bill Bailey, Kevin Eldon, Jason Manford, Jo Brand, Sean Lock and Noel Fielding.

The evening opens with a raucous dance number from Stomp and closes with a legendary performance from Lee Evans, looking the grand old man of stand-up in every sense.