Commercial Breakdown

I don't imagine there are big rights fees for a programme such as Commercial Breakdown, given that people quite like the idea of getting an advertisement on the BBC. Which perhaps explains the sturdy persistence of this kind of show, alongside the fact that there'll always be a reasonably good audience for other people's funny ads.

Can there be an attention span in the land that can't cope with a programme in which no sequence lasts longer than 30 seconds? The title sequence for this latest version, presented by Jimmy Carr, includes a hint as to why top comedians might be persuaded to take a turn at the wheel, a pastiche of the famous Conservative election poster, showing a dole queue of Carrs and the slogan 'Jimmy Isn't Working'. Tell me something I don't know, I thought, assuming that this was one of those classic old-rope/big-cheque deals that so appeal to the jobbing entertainer.

Still, some of the films were pretty funny (check out Trunk Monkey on YouTube for the best of them) and, after a slightly bland start, it was reassuring to see that the sawtooth edge that makes Carr's comedy distinctive hasn't been smoothed out of existence entirely. What's funny is the combination of that end-of-the-pier face - all perky, cheeky-chappie reassurance - and the breathtakingly impolitic things that come out of his mouth. After running a pricelessly dated public-safety film about the dangers of abandoned fridges, Carr offered a reassuring postscript: On the bright side, if a child does get killed by a fridge, it will keep them fresh for three weeks.

Commercial Breakdown With Jimmy Carr is the same as Commercial Breakdown With Rory McGrath, Commercial Breakdown With Jo Brand, Commerical Breakdown With Ruby Wax, and whoever else has done it: laughing at funny advertisements from abroad - and some from here. It may have been amusing back in the 1880s when Jasper Carrrot started it, but it's wearing a bit thin now. You can have a much more amusing 40 minutes on YouTube.

Carr tries to bring it into the modern age with some risque gags about mentally ill people, and adventurous bedroom practices, but there's no disguising the fact it's still laughing at funny foreign ads. And actually, Jimmy, call me Mary Whitehouse if you like, but I'm not sure that national television, in the form of BBC1 on a Sunday night, is the correct forum to ask your girlfriend to have anal sex with you.

It's hardly a new idea, we've seen this sort of clips show before, most notably presented by Clive James and Chris Tarrant in the 1980s. Here the format is resurrected, fronted by comedian Jimmy Carr. He does a reasonable job, too, although the audience seem overly (and suspiciously) buoyed up for the laughs on offer.

As mindlessly diverting telly goes, it doesn't come much more mindless than watching foreign adverts. Strung together by Jimmy Carr with a (mostly) witty script, it's the televisual equivalent of a Pot Noodle - cheap, not exactly nourishing, but once you get into it, horribly addictive.

If you have never caught a Commercial Breakdown (previous recipients of its unique career-damaging magic are Jasper Carrott and Jo Brand) then you're very lucky. It claims to be an unmissable collection of the world's funniest, wildest and weirdest television adverts, each one a mini-masterpiece in its own right.

Historically, however, it has always been a bit of a lame duck, with enhanced laughter tracks and bad scripts for the comic linker - in this case Carr.

Of course, this new incarnation might see the concept raise its game, with Carr a renowned perfectionist.