Robin Thicke

We have another show that, unlike The Fast Show Special, did film all new sketches for the BBC Two anniversary as we welcomed back the brilliant Goodness Gracious Me. It felt to me as if writers and stars Nina Wadia, Meera Syal, Sanjeev Bhaskar and Kulvinder Ghir had something to prove as almost every sketch had some value to it. All of the favourite characters were back from Mr Everything is Indian who had his theories on Sherlock to the overbearing mother who claimed she could make an Apple Phone from an aubergine. An incredibly timely sketch saw the Kapoor/Coopers attempting to sign up for UKip before realising that they'd been recruited purely because they were immigrants. In line with the celebration of the channel's comedy output, the team also presented their own take on the 'Class Sketch' from The Frost Report. Rather than just being a jokes-only sketch show, Goodness Gracious Me always had much more to say about the way that the Asian population were treated in Britain. A sketch focusing on an Indian newspaper, brilliantly known as The Delhi Mail poked fun at the ludicrous nature of print journalism in this country. I'm glad that this sketch had the most time devoted to it as every joke and observation was cleverly executed to the point that I wondered why anybody would ever by The Daily Mail in the first place. Obviously not everything worked, I wasn't personally a fan of the group's take on Mary Poppins, but there was more than enough evidence here that the team are still at the top of their game. As the show finished with a brilliant spoof of Robin Thicke's 'Blurred Lines', I was crossing my fingers that this reunion special was acting as a pilot for a possible new series. Based on the evidence in this programme alone, Goodness Gracious Me is still funnier and cleverer than the majority of current sketch shows and I for one would welcome its return.