John Leslie (I)

Too outrageous for Mock The Week, Frankie Boyle has got his own show now. It's on Channel 4 so he's free from the BBC's post-Sachsgate compliance rules and can be even more offensive and even funnier, yes? Presumably that's the concept of Frankie Boyle's Tramadol Nights. I wasn't offended by any of the jokes in the opener; I just didn't find them very funny. Rules can be daft but they can force a comedian to work harder and be more clever. No need here.

"How ya doin', ya big f****n' Loyalist terrorist suspect?" These were Boyle's first words, aimed at a formidable, shaven-headed man in the audience. He also called the delighted victim a "big gun-running bisexual". Then Catholics got it, then all religious groups. Then gay people (they got it a lot), then John Leslie, George Michael, Ryanair, the Japanese and the mentally ill before finally Boyle cracked a joke I can repeat in a family newspaper, where he lamented the somewhat one-dimensional nature of The Jeremy Kyle Show: "He rounds up his audiences by firing tranquiliser darts into Farmfoods. There's never an edition called I Wanted To Go To Tuscany, You Swine!"

The stage routine was interspersed with filmed sketches which showed up his limitations as a comic actor. I say stage, but the set was a rooftop in the style of a classic movie. As Frankie got more and more enraged, I thought he was going to do a Jimmy Cagney and, in a nod to White Heat, blow himself up. Maybe next time.

Aidan Smith, The Scotsman, 7th December 2010