Frankie Boyle's Tramadol Nights

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Given that he only had enough decent material for one episode, Frankie Boyle really could have done with making his Tramadol Nights series into a one-off special.

Perhaps a half-hour festive programme with the tagline: 'something to offend all the family this Christmas!' would have been a runaway success.

Unfortunately, the third week in the series heralded the second episode in a row that was more gratuitously offensive than it was amusing.

Boyle re-hashed a few gags used only last week involving the supposed gravitational pull of overweight people and there wasn't one sketch that wasn't morally dubious at best. "I'm genuinely surprised I'm getting away with this," he said at one point.

Frankie, my friend, you probably aren't. Give it a few days and Ofcom will be beating down your door once again.

On the plus side, Boyle's stand-up was generally pretty sharp and quite funny and while some viewers might have winced at his one-liners, the audience members seemed perfectly happy to sit back and take in the personal insults.

But instead of starting his writing with the question: 'What will be funny?' he seems to have begun with, 'What's most likely to offend as many people as possible?'

Almost without exception, the sketches were wholly unfunny and the in-house audience seemed to be struggling to raise even the smallest of titters.

However, those who accuse Boyle of being talentless should consider this: during the course of one half-hour television show tonight, Frankie managed to offend grandparents, fat people, Colombians, cancer victims, AIDS victims and victims of sexual abuse... Now that is a unique talent.

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