Rik Mayall

Review of the I Tell You It's Burt Reynolds episode:

The family at the heart of this comedy drama are looking forward to watching The Great Escape together on the telly when someone hammers on the front door. It's Uncle Jim, and he's the most argumentative, obnoxious man imaginable. He's also played to perfection by Rik Mayall. June Whitfield is the deaf and slightly loopy grandmother who gets some great throwaway lines from writers Galton and Simpson: "Who's that with their arm round Gordon Brown?" she asks. It's David Attenborough cuddling a chimp in a TV ad. Uncle Jim, meanwhile, is certain he's spotted Burt Reynolds playing a bit part in The Great Escape and uses Radio Times to prove his point. Reynolds is not listed: "Bloody silly magazine," he barks. I knew he was a wrong 'un from the way he knocked on that door.

OK, I'm confused now. Having checked and then double checked the TV schedules, it appears to be true; Moving Wallpaper and Echo Beach are on ITV1. Yes, ITV1. They're the people who last year washed us away on a sea of swill with Benidorm and unleashed Liza Tarbuck upon us for Bonkers, possibly the worst yet, conversely, best comedy-drama title of the year. But here we have a pair of interconnected shows with a sprightly idea at the core of their very beings. ITV haven't had that on their comedy roster since Rik Mayall transformed himself into a Thatcher-grovelling B'stard.

Echo Beach on its own is, of course, garbage. A glossy soap-style affair with Jason Donovan and Martine McCutcheon and Hugo Speer and Susie Amy adds up to less than zero, but in the context of Moving Wallpaper (a smart comedy about the making of Echo Beach), it grows more arms and legs than a sand-obsessed, flesh-friendly slab of small screen narcissism ought to. Little moments murmur into Echo Beach and reflect back onto sequences we have seen in Moving Wallpaper as the fictional writers try to make hay on a Cornwall-based rural soap about love and betrayal. Recently hired producer Jonathan Pope (Ben Miller, suitably inspired after his dire sketch series with old buddy Alexander Armstrong) wants to kick some arse into proceedings by ditching the uglier actors and stodgy scripts and injecting his new baby with sex and scandal. It's fruity and fun and so not ITV.

On to Believe Nothing (ITV1), Rik Mayall's new vehicle (and I'll leave a pause here for you to insert the quad-bike/vehicle joke of your choosing), which I rather enjoyed, even though (judging by episode one) it's not particularly funny. It's heartening to see a new, mainstream sitcom so completely hell-bent on being just plain silly.

I award five funny bones to Health And Efficiency (BBC1) and Bottom (BBC2). Four to Ellen and Roseanne (both Channel 4). Three to Fantasy Football League and Darts (both BBC2). Two to The High Life for Cumming and Masson, a double act working with a pair of scissors.

Dancing Queen (Granada) was the last in the excellent Rik Mayall Presents series. A slow romance set in Scarborough and filmed with such dazzling beauty by David Odd that you wanted to catch the first train to this place of marmalade skies. Like Mayall, poured onto the train with the stripper after a stag night. A tender performance by Mayall and a stunning one from Scarborough.

Briefest Encounter was a two-hander, if you don't count the dog, and it was a considerable achievement on the part of Mayall and Amanda Donohoe to keep it fizzing for 50 minutes. Television expands or contracts to fill the slot available, and, in this case, less might have been more. But I'm not complaining. Do you hear me complain? There are three comedies in this series and two have been crackers. if there is no bang in the third, it will still have been excellent value.

Bottom is an unfortunate name for a programme, inviting all manner of scatological put-downs from jaded TV critics; a more appropriate title might be Living Off Past Glories as Rik Mayall and partner rehash one more time the same limited repertoire of puerile, violent and nonsensical gestures that worked so brilliantly a decade ago in The Young Ones.

Bottom (BBC2) with Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson is the television equivalent of a Viz cartoon strip. Mindless violence, rampant sexism, schoolboy smut ("Have you strained your vegetables?" "No, it just these hired trousers are a bit tight.") Welcome back, lads.

Bottom (BBC2) is written by and stars Adrian Edmondson and Rik Mayall. [...] I have never in all my puff seen anything so full of tasteless sex and mindless violence. [...] It's wonderful but you can use the quote about tasteless sex and mindless violence, if you like. It'll sell more tickets.