Micky Flanagan

Micky Flanagan proves that stand-ups come in all shapes

Flanagan, like John Bishop, has shown that not all comics are young males in skinny jeans.

Back in the game: Micky Flanagan interview

Micky Flanagan, the Kierkegaard-quoting Cockney comic, is returning with a new stand-up tour. The one-time Billingsgate porter tells Andrew Pettie why success was worth waiting for.

Last Saturday I watched Micky Flanagan, one of Britain's finest stand-ups, employed by BBC 1 to help place a large Yorkshire pudding on a map to prove he knew where Peterborough was, as pop star and game-show favourite Jamelia sang "All You Need Is Love" in a club style. I Love My Country on BBC 1 aims to capture the Olympic 2012 spirit in a tightly formatted game show. It is the show Shooting Stars with Vic and Bob would have been if the BBC had got its way. More rules, more points, more logic, more enforced zany antics. I watched for 20 minutes and, with a growing migraine, realised I love my country but I also love the television off and the pleasant sound of silence.

Over each new Saturday night game show hangs the spectre of Don't Scare the Hare. Remember it? In 2011, the floppy-eared flop was pulled from BBC1 before the first series ended. It came at a time when the thinking was that shows needed crazy set gimmicks: a robotic hare, a moving wall with a hole in, an Olympic diving pool. Tonight's new arrival doesn't bother with that; it just cranks up the idea of a celebrity quiz to such heights of fizzing, demented hilarity that it's hard not to get swept along.

Frank Skinner and Micky Flanagan lead two teams answering British-themed questions from Gabby Logan. The Mayor of High Wycombe and the London School of Samba add local colour, and guest Charlotte Salt (from Casualty) gets a merciless ribbing on her surname. It's that kind of show.

Frank Skinner & Micky Flanagan finally get decent show

It really shouldn't work but, as GQ discovered when we were granted a sneak peek of the first episode, the considerable charisma of the three hosts carries a distinctly dubious premise. Here is what we loved about it...

In the '70s, the parish vicar was a staple sitcom character. Steptoe & Son would regularly be thrown into paroxysms of nervous guilt by the prospect of the local god-botherer coming round to tea, while Terry & June were forever tying themselves into unlikely knots in the run-up to a dinner party with the Reverend Austin Doyle (note to younger readers: Terry & June was like Him & Her with milky tea and stairlifts).

Now we get to find out why these men of the cloth were in such demand at social functions with the baldly titled Some Vicars With Jokes, a half hour of genial clerics cracking wise and acting the goat. And that's pretty much all there is to tell. The wisecracks themselves are, shall we say, of a certain vintage, and all sound as if they've been ripped from the Dave Allen jokebook, but there are at least couple you might find yourself slipping into your own repertoire.

The decision to place the drollery against a flat, putty-coloured, computer generated backdrop is rather offputting, but the saintly stand-ups are good enough company to give this a look. Pick of the bunch is Reverend Paul Turp of St Leonard's in Shoreditch who comes across like a depressive Micky Flanagan by way of Harold Pinter.

Review - Micky Flanagan, Back in the Game

Micky Flanagan had a few good lines, not least in revealing his teenage fantasy of sex with the female assistant in the baker's shop, but it was bland stuff. If comedy really is rock n roll then this was an evening of muzak.

Review: Micky Flanagan - Back in the Game

Those expecting the 'hits' from the Out Out tour, the show which rocketed Micky Flanagan to his superstar status, will be disappointed - there's not even a nod to them here. But by the time Back in the Game wraps up in a neat callback to the show's title, the audience has forgotten those old routines ever existed. Bosh, job done.

Top 20 comedy shows in London - May

Featuring Eddie Izzard, Jack Dee, Micky Flanagan, Omid Djalili, Ed Byrne, a gig on a ship, charity fundraisers, the Funny Side, Invisible Dot, the Store and loads more.

Review - Micky Flanagan: Back In The Game

It's on the eternal subject of the co-existence of men and women that Micky Flanagan has most to say. It risks sliding into cliche, but just about avoids it simply by dint of the situations he describes seeming so familiar to anyone in a relationship.