Steve Delaney

The trailers for Count Arthur Strong made it appear as funny as John Inverdale's objectionable analysis of Wimbledon champion Marion Bartoli. However, appearances can be deceptive.

Though it's saddled with an awful laughter track, the button lent on at random intervals, Count Arthur Strong - the character and the sitcom - is hewn from the great British tradition of eccentricity. It's not bending over backwards to appear wacky, it's genuinely strange.

This means parts are very funny while other moments - to borrow the catchphrase of angry cafe owner Bulent, the pick of the supporting cast - are 'what the flip?' But there were three or four laugh-out-loud moments in its opening episode, a rare thing for a British sitcom.

Count Arthur Strong is played by co-writer/creator Steve Delaney, who delivers every line as if he's about to embark on a bombing mission on the toilet - he keeps a gong to disguise the noise.

Strong is a former comedian, now languishing in obscurity, whose life is filled with oddballs and even odder lines of thought. Into his life stumbles Michael, the son of his ex-comedy partner, researching a book about his dead and not much loved dad. And that's about it for set-up.

It's the interplay between the bravura Delaney and Rory Kinnear, neatly underplaying Michael, that keeps Count Arthur Strong on track when too much weirdness threatens to derail it. There are tumbleweed moments but, with Graham 'Father Ted' Linehan on co-writing duty, there's comedy gold too.

One exchange, when Arthur summed up Michael's life thus: 'And you went on to write books about anal museums,' sweetly struck the comedy spot. Add to that Michael ranting about plurals not needing apostrophes - yay, go Michael - and what you've got is a peculiar treat that lurches from hit to miss and back with peculiar abandon. Give it a go.

Good radio comedy could not have sounded less funny on television, nor canned laughter more ironic. Something was surely lost in translation in the BBC's transposition of the Sony Radio Academy-award-winning show Count Arthur Strong into prime-time TV.

Did anyone muster a laugh when Steve Delaney's doddery old former variety star, Arthur Strong, opened his front door and said to hapless young Michael (Rory Kinnear): "You rang the bell. I've broken a plate because of you. That was dishwasher safe, that was"? Cue canned laughter. Or when he asked what Michael did for a living: "I'm an author," replied Michael, to which Arthur puzzled: "I thought your name was Michael... I'm Arthur." Cue more canned laughter. Also cue head-scratching from those at home who had a soft spot for the radio show's silly yet lovable humour, but failed to see the charm of these dull-witted scenes, attempting to pass for OAP slapstick.

It is sad - and perplexing - that it didn't work, given that it is written by Delaney and Father Ted creator Graham Linehan. Delaney originally created the character in the 1980s, resurrecting him for the Edinburgh Fringe in 1997 to much acclaim, and after that, for radio since 2004. Astonishingly, given its success in these other mediums, the most recent incarnation as a TV sitcom refused to spark into life: the greasy caff was filled with a man wearing a sandwich board, an old dear from Poland and some others who looked like extras from Last of the Summer Wine, while an angry café manager said "What the flip?" a lot at these old people's dribbling stupidities. The likeable Kinnear, playing the uptight son of Strong's ex-variety partner, went some way to redeem the whole thing with his straight-man act as a tormented soul.

Visually, it was so derivative that it seemed deliberate, as if the nostalgia of flock wallpaper, long-fringed lamps, and Strong's pencilled-on Hitler moustache could pass for good, funny entertaining. That said, Strong is too much of a radio institution to be condemned to the TV rubbish heap. Perhaps this opening episode just suffered a severe case of first-night nerves.

A strong premise for this sitcom by Steve Delaney and Graham Linehan: Michael Baker, an author of rather dry books is commissioned to write a biography of his dead father, a famous comedian of the 1970s. Research duly leads Michael to his father's double act partner, Arthur Strong. Rory Kinnear is great as Michael Baker, but Arthur himself (Delaney) seems to be not so much a character as some cliches about elderly people, wearing a hat. What follows is mainly a procession of Last Of The Summer Wine-style "funny business".

Previously a minor cult on Radio 4, Count Arthur Strong makes the leap to the small screen courtesy of Graham Linehan (Father Ted). He has co-written the TV version with Steve Delaney, who plays the title role.

It's a bit of a self-consciously bonkers affair, Strong being the kind of over-the-top character who is the very definition of Marmite. Strong's speciality is mangling the English language until it screams for mercy - and you might be doing the same.

As far as I'm aware, just me, my friend Tim and RT's radio editor Jane Anderson are fans of Count Arthur Strong, comedian Steve Delaney's malapropism-prone creation, who's been comfortably berthed on Radio 4 for years. So it's good of Father Ted creator Graham Linehan to bring the Count to TV (as co-writer, with Delaney, and director) just for us.

Strong is an acquired taste, an exquisitely dreadful old fool, a hopeless former self-aggrandising variety show turn with delusions of greatness. He was always a divisive figure on Radio 4, so doubtless he'll split TV audiences, too. But give him a chance, parts of this are really funny. Who can resist nonsense like "She's choking, give her the Heineken manoeuvre!"

Lovely Rory Kinnear provides some sanity as the son of an old friend of the Count's, who's writing his dad's biography.

The challenge for much-loved radio institutions transferring to TV is introducing themselves to a new audience while keeping the loyal fanbase onside. On the basis of this series opener, Count Arthur Strong could go either way. As always, Steve Delaney's doddery, malapropistic and memory-challenged 'showbiz legend' manages some funny moments, but this still feels almost aggressively old school in its format and furthermore, very much like a show that might as well still be on the wireless.

The story arc involves Rory Kinnear's author Michael Baker attempting to write his father's biography. His father Max, was Count Arthur's comedy partner. And so it begins. Oddly, this show may be redeemed by its promising minor characters: Kinnear is amusingly prissy and pedantic, and we like the look of Chris Ryman as café owner Bulent too. Still, the jury's out for now.

Count Arthur Strong comes to the telly

Long a cult favourite on the comedy circuit and Radio 4, the sublimely dotty old thesp is getting his own sitcom. His creator Steve Delaney talks to Dominic Cavendish.

Count's transfer confirms Radio 4 as comedy pioneer

Steve Delaney's creation about ageing variety performer is latest of many BBC radio comedy shows to migrate to television.

TV preview: Count Arthur Strong, BBC2

I saw a Tweet recently that asked if Count Arthur Strong was the new Mrs Brown. Having seen the first episode of the new sitcom starring Steve Delaney as befuddled old showbiz never-was Strong I think I can safely say that the answer is "no." It is not as smutty, not as low-brow, not as cliched as Mrs Brown. The only way it might be similar is that it might prove to be as popular as Mrs Brown. Though this time with good reason.

We should count our blessings for Delaney's creation

Count Arthur Strong, Steve Delaney's self-styled "showbusiness legend", is coming to BBC Two, writes Laura Thompson.