Johnny Borrell

Sadly, the instant you hear the name Admin you know it's going to be a dire Office rip-off.

The slender plotline centres on a promotion when a paralegal position comes up for grabs, inspiring hilarious lines such as, I'd love to be a paraglider. Oscar Wilde got it wrong, sarcasm is not the lowest form of wit - that would be hard-of-hearing idiots with regional accents.

Of the two moments that challenge your smile into a face-off with your frown, the joke about faeces is funnier than the joke about bumming but, on the whole, Admin just gallops forward, for half an hour, like a blind horse.

There is one believable character, a pregnant admin drone, Tania (Jessica Hall), who hides a brain behind her blondeness and swelling bosom.

The rest are caric-atures: the man-eating female boss Gloria (Sian Reeves); a ditzy Scouse who, while filling in her job application, asks, Is smoking an interest?; an 'I'm mad me' dork who goes around the office singing Katrina and the Waves and humping the photocopier; an annoying Asian character, Asif; and a wimpy bloke who pretends he can play the sax but can't (laugh? I nearly did) and who looks like an even more dentally challenged Johnny Borrell.

I blame Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps - that show ran for seven series, without anything other than its fiendish regularity to recommend it.

The message is out there that us plebs will watch anything and, damnit, we probably will. I don't care how hilariously unfunny Admin is, if the Beeb make a full series, we should seriously consider asking for a licence fee rebate.

Malcolm Mackenzie, The London Paper, 12th May 2008