Citizen Khan

Citizen Khan is the worst comedy I've ever seen

There are several ways to watch Citizen Khan. One is to watch as a snob, shaking your head at the feeble attempts at comedy. Another is to take it in bite-size chunks, watching a few minutes here and there, stopping to make tea, to read a chapter of a good book, or to refresh yourself with a YouTube clip of some decent comedy, returning to cringe and endure. Another, being the most drastic but, I suppose, the most effective, is to travel back in time to a 1950s asylum in New England and book yourself in for a particularly brutal lobotomy. I know healthcare in the US is expensive, but it'd be worth going the whole hog with this option. Request the works! Only then, rendered numb and infantile, will Citizen Khan be palatable to you: it won't irritate anymore, it won't aggravate and it won't infuriate. It'll just be some jumbled coloured images on the screen.

Citizen Khan, review: 'embarrassing'

If Mrs Brown's Boys has become a lightning rod for critical opprobrium thanks to the all-encompassing nature of its commercial success and creative bankruptcy, Adil Ray's Birmingham-set sitcom has had a marginally easier ride thanks to more palatable characters, but this is nevertheless a grimly retrograde comedy.

Brimingham-set Citizen Khan filmed in Salford

While BBC comedy Citizen Khan is set in Birmingham, it has all been filmed in Salford and Greater Manchester for the new series starting on Friday.

Christmas is a time of giving and I'm giving you all a present by not making you have to watch the awful Citizen Khan Christmas Special. The central conceit of the show was that Adil Ray's titular community leader was against celebrating Christmas. However, he was the only one in his family who felt this way and soon his wife was pressuring him to get festive. To this end he had to spend an enormous amount of money on a tree and donate presents to the local church. Unfortunately one of these presents happened to be one of Mrs Khan's most treasured heirlooms. The supposed comedy then came from Khan posing as Santa in order to retrieve the item before anybody found out.

I've said it many times on this website but I find Citizen Khan incredibly offensive. From the Khan women believing that turkey was 'just a big chicken' and adding chillies to the stuffing to Mr Khan's various exploits playing Santa everything just felt incredibly clichéd. I have to say that I didn't laugh once throughout the entire thirty minutes of watching it and I knew exactly how the show would end. Now I've got nothing against old-fashioned comedy if it's done right, such as Not Going Out, but Citizen Khan just doesn't have anything going for it at all. The reason for giving Citizen Khan a third series is beyond me and I'm really hoping people stop watching the show so it doesn't return for a fourth.

One of the things about being Muslim is that Christmas celebrations - the sort with crackers, turkey, tinsel and a tree with lights - aren't a religious obligation. But for Citizen Khan's first BBC Christmas outing, Mrs Khan has decided that that's exactly the sort of festivity she wants, bang on Christmas Eve. So begins a quest to make it happen at short notice, with the usual japes: a mix-up with a family heirloom at Santa's grotto, a sob story to get the last tree, and even a car chase. Well, sort of.

This falls firmly into the category of comedy Marmite but fans of Citizen Khan generally begin their defence with: 'I know I shouldn't like it but...' with the 'but' revolving around the daft giggles offered up by Adil Ray's puffed-up leading man, his balloon of self-importance rarely pricked by anything so bothersome as reality. This Christmas special finds him obsessing over being named Muslim Of The Month at his local mosque.

We all have our comedy secret, and Citizen Khan is mine. (Not any more, obviously.) I shouldn't love it - it's unsophisticated, silly and broad, with an inept man-child who's a self-important buffoon in a cheap suit at its centre. But it's good-hearted, optimistic and entirely without side, and reminds me of sitcoms of my childhood like Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em and Terry and June (and kids love Citizen Khan).

In this Christmas special Khan's long-suffering wife wants to celebrate Christmas while Khan (Adil Ray) yearns to be named Muslim of the Month for donating more tat than anyone to the local mosque. There's no plot as such, it's just a series of pratfalls and nonsense involving a badly cooked turkey and Mr Khan playing Santa for entirely self-seeking reasons.

For all the criticism levelled at its representation of Muslims, it's the dearth of funny, well-written jokes that really plagues Citizen Khan. In this Christmas special, Mrs Khan decides that the family should have a traditional family do, and sends her Scrooge-like husband off to find a tree and some decorations for the occasion. Mr Khan (Adil Ray) reluctantly obliges, and a series of comic mishaps ensues.

The slapstick humour is arbitrary and predictable and almost every one-liner painfully contrived. Mr Khan himself is relatively compelling as a mickey-taking buffoon, but the supporting cast are bland, one-note characters who fare badly without Ray's on-screen presence. The episode does have some heart and there is something resembling a pay-off, but don't expect this mediocre offering to split any sides.

Citizen Khan: why Muslims love Christmas

The sitcom star would like to make it clear that Muslims think it's a wonderful celebration almost on a par with Ramadan - and that Father Christmas is Pakistani.