Nancy Banks-Smith

In Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em the new improved Spencer is brighter and unbereted. I don't think it an improvement myself but the BBC has every confidence in the series, bringing Michael Crawford on at the end of The Generation Game lest we forget.

As wrestlers are intrinsically funny anway, I don't think the series has anywhere to go. It has, so to speak, already been.

It was an oddity of Born and Bred that the reunion meal went off very well, if windily. "Happy days... you can say that again... one of the best... this is it, innit... you're all right and Frank's all right and Ray's all right." No doubt this is just like the home life of our own dear Queen but it's not at all like mine.

Surprised myself by enjoying this Thames comedy in which Roy Kinnear in an ill-fitting head attempted to interest Brian Murphy in an off-the-peg moustache in the economic possibilities of Kentucky fried pigeon and newt in a basket. The deep and wide shiftiness of Kinnear's face reminds me of the Great Grimpen Mire.

Still, Life Begins At Forty (The Buntings are expecting a baby Bunting) made my toes curl inside my socks for Rosemary Leach and Derek Nimmo - decent actors who did not deserve this. The cast all laugh a lot which is helpful for otherwise I would have great difficulty in spotting the jokes.

How different from the Command Performance of The Good Life before Her Majesty at the BBC's TV centre. This was a charming instance of impromptu, informal, pop in and see us some time, pot luck entertainment. Apart from filming for two days instead of one and rehearsing all day before the performance, it was just like any ordinary Good Life (tonight BBC1).

The jokes were very often a matter of almost automatic word play which will be seen to better advantage in the book of the film.

And Going Straight always has the copper-bottomed commodiously curved Ronnie Barker, looking like Father Christmas who has come to nick the toys.

It reminded me, oddly enough, of Last of the Summer Wine (BBC1), which has just ended its run. Foggy Dewhirst, Clegg and Compo, respectively an ex-officer, redundant lino salesman and a burden on the welfare state, are released by age from all that and spend the afternoons as if they were children. The afternoons because they's when the pubs close.

I suspect that, here and there, Sykes and Edwards may have added certain impromptu comments to the script. Something about Sykes's irritated "Go oil your bat" and Edwards's comments on a recalcitrant buttonhole, "I thought there was a hole in there. I'll cram it in somewhere," sounded funnier not to say filthier than the original.