Nancy Banks-Smith

Girl Talk (ATV), is the first of three comedy shows scripted by women, fresh from its smash-hit success on a ladies' lavatory wall. It is a little miracle that anything so dirty can be so dull.

Dick Sharples's enjoyment of words is one good reason for recommending the Nesbitts. In their basement cop shop, shaken like a rat by passing trains, the police debate whether Sigmoid is a word or not.

This very human tendency to love the lowest when he sees it may have prevented him watching Roald Dahl's Tales of the Unexpected. One sketch in the Benny Hill Show (Thames) was a remarkably close copy of Mrs Blixby and the Colonel's Coat, shown in this series a year ago.

The problem then is whither Willie. What is he for? In Rushton's Illustrated, which is all his own work, he has surrounded himself with excellent character actors (Junkin, Kinnear, Paddick) and the quirky dilapidation of music hall.

The peculiar delight of a Rosenthal script is the glancing illogic, the surreal squiffiness of the dialogue, which makes his conversations feel like an act with a cross-eyed trapeze artist. Just when you think you are home and dry, your grip slips.

The Secret Policeman's Ball (ITV) was a television version of the annual show in aid of Amnesty International. Imagine being locked in there with all those folk singers and comedians and not being able to get out. It really brought the horror of imprisonment home to you.

I have been trying to love Minder (Thames). Week after week I have said to my cringing Monday-morning face, tonight you will really enjoy Minder. Force yourself.

This theory sits Fawlty Towers (BBC2) like a tea cosy over a tom cat. Here and there but hardly. Funny foreigners, awful wives? That great whoosh of laughter as Sybil Fawlty excused Manuel, the poor dago with all the phoney warmth of an electric log fire in her voice "He's from Barcelona." It was Fawlty's finest hour.

To the Manor Born (BBC1) is what they used to call a vehicle for Penelope Keith. A somewhat antiquated gig, possibly barouche, conceivably landau, perhaps a growler. What ever that is. Sherlock Holmes leaped into them a lot crying "Paddington."

Hywel Bennett, as Shelley, arrives like a baby elephant through a paper hoop. A smaller actor might have done a smoother job on that first speech. But he seems to make the set bulge a bit and does add weight to the series, which itself has more substance than some.