Les Dawson

Here's a welcome repeat from 2004, reminding us that Les Dawson, with his hangdog looks and bleak routines, was one of Britain's greatest comics. His diaries reveal his secret love of literature, but they are also shot through with doubt and disappointment, fear and insecurity. In many ways, Dawson's story is typical of so many comedians, who are tortured souls desperate to be taken seriously. But it's not all bleakness, for there are some sublimely funny moments. John Nettles and Jack Dee are among the contributors.

Archive comedy clips have never sounded so odd. Alan Carr interweaves segments from the BBC archives with his own fictional escapades. In this first show, he goes on a hen night that somehow ends up involving Les Dawson, Ross Noble, Michael McIntyre, a lamppost and plenty of cling film.

This unflappable fowl walked on, as we say in the trade, during The Les Dawson Show (BBC1), wearing one of his old dress suits cut down, with the confidence of someone who has played the Glasgow Empire and lived to boast about it in bars. Les Dawson, who has precisely the same assurance for precisely the same reason, paid no attention whatsoever, as if passing penguins were a fact of life too common for comment.

Since Les Dawson is one of the judges of that competition, I listened with care to the next edition of Listen To Les [...] There is nothing wrong with old jokes; it's the professional skill and timing of the likes of Les Dawson and his writer-presenter, James Casey, that makes us laugh, though I can't help being turned off by the length audience applause.

Les Dawson (BBC1) is such an engaging fellow that you might wish he could be more adventurous, but his audience probably likes him for sticking to what he knows, which is mainly a verbally evoked Orc-sized mother-in-law and a wife who has to be transported in a cage.