Harry & Paul

Harry & Paul, BBC Two, review

In some quarters BBC comedy gets derided for being too PC, but you couldn't say that about Harry & Paul, with its officious immigrant traffic warden and its class stereotypes (half the characters are either thick toffs or tracksuited thugs).

They're now more classic than cutting edge, but it's good to have Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse back for a fourth series of their sketch show. Tonight they revisit old ground (their spoof of Dragons' Den) and break out some new characters. Victoria Wood joins in for a dig at the minor royals, and there is a send-up of Question Time.

Harry Enfield filmed in straitjacket for new show

Harry Enfield was kept firmly under control during filming - strapped into a straitjacket.

Picture: Harry Enfield is loaded Ma'amy

Harry Enfield looks the Queen of mean as he brandishes a machine gun while dressed as Her Maj. Harry, 51, was snapped in a London park as he filmed a new episode of TV series Harry & Paul.

The most surprising gong of the night at this year's Bafta TV awards was the comedy programme prize which went to BBC2 sketch show Harry & Paul. This is the show, you will remember which was not entirely warmly welcomed by critics. The win will also have come as a surprise to the programme's two stars, Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse, who were otherwise engaged and unable to make the ceremony, and to BBC2 controller Janice Hadlow, who has not yet commissioned another series of the now Bafta-winning show. Busy diaries to blame, apparently. "It's early days," says a BBC insider. "Should know more in the next couple of weeks hopefully." Ruddy hell indeed.

BBC cuts Harry Enfield show

BBC comedy show Harry & Paul has been AXED after bosses claimed they had no room for it.

As if scheduled to prove that television comedy is as prone to the winds of fashion as any falling or rising hem, I found myself staring, misty-eyed, at Harry and Paul last week.

Hadn't meant to, but there it was - plonked in the BBC2 schedules on Tuesday, like coming across that old burgundy leather skinny tie in your wardrobe.

As with every unexpected moment of nostalgia, there were a few fond memories, and plenty to cringe at. The sketch in which Harry Enfield translated, dead pan, on behalf of Paul Whitehouse's lascivious Italian politician (think Sylvio Berlusconi gurning on Viagra) reminded you of the pair's Nineties pomp: broad, physical, confident. "Parking Patawayo" was anything but - a crude swipe at African parking attendants, in the style of Postman Pat but, alas, not quite as amusing as Postman Pat.

The running gag about the hapless middle-ager who's fallen hopelessly in love with the Polish girl at his local café definitely draws on a dynamic in which the humour lies mostly in what isn't said. Laura Solon is syllable-perfect as the contemptuous Pole, and Harry Enfield wonderfully glum as a man who can't give up hoping, despite knowing that things are hopeless. I'm always glad to see the establishing frame which tells you its coming, which isn't always the case in Harry and Paul, an odd mixture of running gags that still have legs and those that have long run their course. It's a question of taste I guess. "Parking Pataweyo", a cod-children's programme built around a Nigerian traffic warden, struck me as being only just funny enough for a one-off, and a recurrent sketch in which two old clubland buffers discuss the sexual orientation of celebrities is so unvarying in its script that even the energy of the comic acting can't revive it. But I can take any amount of the lubricious Italian prime minister or (a genuinely trenchant bit of social satire this) I Saw You Coming, which revolves around the endless gullibility of ladies who lunch. This week the character had gone into the spa business and was offering a novel activity he called "Detoxerboxercize". "I literally beat the crap out of you," he explained. His mark looked momentarily doubtful until he added the magic words: "It's good for releasing toxins."

If you thought Paul Whitehouse and Harry Enfield stopped being funny around 1997 - well, you're basically right, especially having watched Whitehouse's cringeworthy Aviva adverts. Seeing this series advertise guest appearances from such cutting-edge comic luminaries as Lenny Henry doesn't fill one with confidence either. But give this sketch show series a chance - the veteran pair do manage to recall former glories from time to time, especially with Gabbatore, the corrupt Italian politician with an eye for the ladies (remind you of anyone?), and a Dragons' Den spoof that is woundingly accurate.