Steve Delaney

Is Count Arthur the comedy the BBC is looking for?

The BBC One sitcom has finally got a prime-time slot - and co-writer Graham Linehan could not be more delighted.

TV show: Count Arthur Strong, BBC1

It's been a while since the last Count Arthur Strong series but the third run does not mark a significant change.

Steve Delaney's deluded variety star-turned-raconteur completes his peculiar journey from Radio 4 to the heart of the mainstream. The comedy has undeniably got broader as the audience has grown but the Count's quirky charms make for cheerful early evening entertainment.

TV preview: Count Arthur Strong

He's becoming too likeable but still a great character.

Count Arthur Strong: The Sound of Mucus review

Delightfully cack-handed, stumbling and foolish shenanigans from Steve Delaney's wholly inhabited Count.

Count Arthur Strong review

He is not only very funny, but his comedy, with its marked lack of expletives, has cross-generational appeal.

Count Arthur Strong: The Sound Of Mucus review

This show, directed by Graham Duff, plays to all the Count's strengths, as the master of mishap, malt whisky and malapropism makes a right hash of trying to recreate the Sound of Music with a distinctly limited budget.

Interview: Steve Delaney (Count Arthur Strong)

Bruce Dessau takes tea with the man behind the trilby, Steve Delaney aka Count Arthur Strong.

Review: Count Arthur Strong at the Alban Arena

There are flat sequences that could do with some sharpening, but there's too much to treasure in this mock old-school entertainer.

Count Arthur Strong: The Sound Of Mucus review

[The finale is actually a bit of an anticlimax,] but by then we've enjoyed so many moments of laugh-out-loud absurdity, subtly slapstick in both word and deed, from this perfectly-realised fool, that to grumble would be churlish.