Citizen Khan

Citizen Khan Christmas special review

In the past, Citizen Khan has been accused of being offensive and perpetuating stereotypes. It does perpetuate stereotypes and not particularly pleasant ones either. Misogyny, chauvinism, bitter, deep-rooted ethnic tensions. That being said, it manages pull off the trick of not being offensive. The ham delivery and predictable punchlines of all of these jokes are so crass and juvenile that it's impossible to be insulted. That's an achievement of sorts.

Abdullah Afzal spills the beans on the wedding episode

The Manchester actor is getting married next year too so he can sympathise with Amjad and Shazia.

Life can be cruel. Take the lot of the titular Mr Khan, pouring his efforts into becoming Sparkhill's Muslim community equivalent of Sepp Blatter, yet he doesn't even get invited to a local civic reception for Prince Charles. Mr K is so put out by the snub he ignores Mrs Khan's new organic food stall at the city farm. That is, until her efforts afford him a chance to engineer an encounter with our monarch-in-waiting, meaning there's just the formidable head of the welcoming committee to circumvent.

Radio Times review

Step onto the Citizen Khan shuttle and travel right back in time, stopping in the early 1970s when you could make a joke about "a dicky bow" on a TV sitcom and audiences would die laughing.

But Citizen Khan scoffs in the faces of chronology and fashion and yes, there it is, a joke about a dicky bow, as in "maybe I'll get my dicky bow out". "Steady on!" wails Mr Khan (Adil Ray) and we are back in the age of innocence. Do people even refer to "dicky bows" any more?

Never mind, Citizen Khan's world is a lost paradise of pratfalls and silly misunderstandings. Tonight he's involved in a daft scam involving cut-price nappies and he faces his formidable sister in law, Aunty Noor (Nina Wadia).

Citizen Khan wins big at 2014 RTS North West Awards

Citizen Khan has scooped two awards at the 2014 RTS North West Awards, winning "Best Comedy Programme" and "Best Performance In A Comedy" for Adil Ray.

Radio Times review

Citizen Khan is the perfect pre-watershed retro-comedy. Kids love the pompous community leader because he's as daft as a brush and those of us old enough to remember 1970s telly will sigh with happy recognition at the ancientness of the gags.

Khan (Adil Ray) gets in a tangle with that greatest of all comedy staples, trying to impress his daughter's prospective mother-in-law, coupled with probably the second of all comedy staples, trying not to mention another man's terrible toupee.

Naturally Khan can't help himself and falls headlong into numerous tonsorial traps. Watch out, too, for a piece of slapstick involving a remote-controlled swivel chair as the Khans invite doltish Amjad's parents for a pre-wedding dinner. Mind the best china!

Radio Times review

I know, Citizen Khan is puerile and silly, and possibly promotes unhelpful stereotypes. I'm in no position to comment on the latter (Khan is created and played by British Muslim Adil Ray), but in comedy terms, I love its old-school innocence.

Khan is every fumbling sitcom man-child since Terry Scott in Terry and June (which Citizen Khan resembles), a buffoon surrounded by sensible women. There is nothing sophisticated here, it's not Veep or Modern Family.

This is a very British comedy. Khan gets into scrapes because of his own stupidity, arrogance or overweening ego. He tries to get out of them, and digs himself deeper into the mud. It's a pantomime and its laughs are broad.

In the first of a new series, Khan tries to stop his wife's mother from going to live in a care home. But only because he thinks she's worth £25,000.

The third series for Sparkhill's self-appointed community leader, and Mr K is fretting over the cost of Shazia and Amjad's wedding. Now that this sitcom is seeking a wider audience for its - let's face it - inoffensively traditional laughs via this pre-watershed slot, it remains to be seen how many new viewers tune in.

Adil Ray interview

'My show is a counter-narrative to Islamic State conflict'.

Citizen Khan review - very traditional British sitcom

Watch out for the Khans in the arrivals hall - they're the family who seems to have flown in from a 1970s sitcom.