Gayle Tuesday: The Comeback

Gayle Tuesday makes a welcome return to the screen in Gayle Tuesday: The Comeback. Oh come on, you remember Gayle, the page three stunna and uber-bimbo who graced TV screens back in the nineties?

It was Gayle who memorably introduced the phrase "Oi, tits first! I'm not a slag", to British television.

A decade on we find Gayle, the comic creation of actress Brenda Gilhooly, in denial of middle age and intent upon a return to the world of celebrity.

It is all highly enjoyable and consistently funny, but at an hour in length each episode rather over stretches itself.

Toyah Willcox, Paul O'Grady, Ainsley Harriott, Harry Hill and Heston Blumenthal are among the famous faces sending themselves up, with Toyah winning the acting honours.

The inanities of the world of the minor celebrity are nicely skewered in this spiky mockumentary starring Brenda Gilhooly as the busty Gayle Tuesday, a former Page 3 girl desperate to break into TV. There's a tragic kind of humour to the dim and deluded Tuesday as she attempts to get noticed once again - and for more than the obvious reason. She lies her way to an appearance on an afternoon reality cookery show with Ainsley Harriott, then she blags an audition with Elle Macpherson on Britain's Next Top Model. The script is by Gilhooly and Harry Hill.

Gayle Tuesday, a (spoof) Page 3 girl who had her own series in 1996, is ready for a comeback. And Living is there to mock-ument her every move. As a show about fame, it picks easy targets, but there are moments of flair. It gets a lot better when it shifts towards Gayle's grotesque ambition and oneupmanship (a Toyah Willcox family funeral is particularly Partridge-like). Good fun, with game guest roles from Harry Hill (who script edits), Heston Blumenthal, Paul O'Grady and Ainsley Harriott.

Occasionally brilliant attempt at a comeback from Brenda Gilhooly's comedy character. There's been a lot done about the desperation of the minor celeb, since even before Extras, but that doesn't detract from some cracking set pieces: the brutal 'public appearance' in a shopping centre - "I used to be on the telly a lot in the 90s. I was a topless model. Would you like a picture? No? Oh."; the reality cooking show with potato carving competition where the competitors are given a picture each of the Pope, the Queen, Nelson Mandela and Brian from Big Brother. "And as an amazing surprise we've got the winning potato's real life counterpart here!" "What? Nelson Mandela could be here?" It's all very good and script-edited by Harry Hill, who shows up as a wonderfully discomfited version of himself.