Budgie

I was entirely won over by the incidental business of Budgie meditatively munching after dinner mints at prison visiting time while his awful wife talked interminably. All it lacked was coffee and candles.

People and programmes don't change much. Budgie was recognisably the same as the first, though probably improved by time. Though it dealth with a pretty smelly level of humanity, the comedy disinfected the dishonesty and it had the oddest air of innocence. The last episode, like the first, accelerated at the end into something very funny indeed.

And that's another test of a catchy programme. You begin to talk like the script. I'm having some difficulty not breaking into small-time crime slang. The script is, of course, by the excellent old firm of Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall.