Neil Forsyth

Brian Cox has given life to a great new comic monster here, a man who blazes through life offending everyone in his path without ever losing his enormous self-belief. Neil Forsyth's comedy features the prize idiot previously known for his letter-writing in books and on Radio 4, who's now running chaotically for Parliament: Dundee cheeseburger magnate Bob Servant. Cox brilliant makes the most of an already very funny, bewilderingly silly script. "Phone the internet" and catch up with it...

First encountered on BBC Radio Scotland and then Radio 4, Neil Forsyth's creation, the deluded Bob Servant, graduates to television in a new comedy series. Servant made his name in Broughton Ferry's "cheeseburger wars", and here puts his hat into the ring as the independent candidate in the Scottish town's by-election; his poster campaign being: "You know him, he's OK". Veteran actor Brian Cox takes on the role of Servant - as he did on the radio - but despite his best efforts, the script does him few favours.

The creation of writer Neil Forsyth, Bob Servant is a character who has - through his email exchanges with internet spammers in Africa and Russia (he tells them, perplexingly, about the details of his life in Broughty Ferry, a Dundee suburb) - become a kind of Scottish national treasure, albeit a fictional one. This series, starring Brian Cox, attempts to bring this Pooter/Partridge-style creation to life on screen, and follows Bob as he campaigns to become an MP. Much like support for Bob, actual jokes are very thin on the ground.

Bob Servant Independent: the don of Dundee

It started as an email prank: a way of out-scamming the scammers. Then it became a book, and a radio play. So when Neil Forsyth was asked to turn his alter ego Bob Servant into a TV character, he fantasised about casting his hero Brian Cox. Then came a chance meeting...

The best of Bob Servant

Ahead of new his BBC TV series, we look back on The List Agony Uncle's finest moments.