Ideal

Happy birthday Ideal!

Tonight will see Ideal reach it's 50th episode. An uncommon achievement for any programme. Especially a British comedy series. Whilst U.S. comedies frequently rack up hundreds of installments, it's very rare indeed for a UK production to pass the 12 episode mark. Many of course, don't even make it that far.

Video: Ideal fans celebrate with Cartoon Head flashmob

Johnny Vegas is a larger than life character - but his Ideal co-star Cartoon Head gave him a run for his money when 50 masked fans formed a flashmob.

The group wore mouse masks as they paraded and danced around Media City and the Lowry Outlet Mall in Salford.

Cartoon Head, who never speaks in the Salford-set comedy-drama, is a favourite character for many Ideal fans.

The 50th episode of the show goes out tonight at 10.30pm on BBC3.

An Ideal who's who

To celebrate Ideal's 50th episode, series creator Graham Duff lists his 50 favourite characters.

Ideal: Not just about drugs

If you were to listen to received wisdom, Ideal is simply "a show about drugs". In reality, of course, Ideal is no more a show about drugs than Only Fools And Horses was a show about stolen goods.

Moz tries to call in his debts but a surprising number of his mates are conveniently skint. Meanwhile, Nikki's sister is falling for Cartoon Head, despite Nikki's warnings to steer clear. This seventh series is warming up nicely (after Paul Weller's ace cameo last week) and which other UK sitcom can boast the subtle, un-starry presence of Janeane Garofalo in a supporting role, back to her Larry Sanders best? Graham Duff's ability to write seven of these incredible series (and play one of its funniest characters) should be enthusiastically applauded.

Johnny Vegas's 'Ideal' returns with 630,000

Series seven of Johnny Vegas' sitcom Ideal debuted with almost 630,000 on Thursday evening, while Celebrity Juice remained popular on ITV2, according to the latest audience data.

A seventh series for Graham Duff's exemplary weed-com, starring Johnny Vegas as Moz, the hapless dealer and woman magnet. We join him desperately trying to win back the heart of Jenny, but dismayed to find she has taken up with the police force. And lord knows he's been through enough already, what with the kidnapped dad and the Triads and so on. Any sitcom that can leap deftly from straight drama to surrealism to full-blown musical and back again deserves far more acclaim than Ideal gets. Truly a show of which BBC3 can be proud.

Series seven of the baked sitcom, which returns every year to a space several yards to the left of leftfield. It has a voice and a style all its own: not laugh-out-loud funny so much as grotesquely amusing and just slightly disturbing, thanks to imaginative, off-kilter camerawork and music, and the fact that the characters all seem like the sort of people who'd be selfish and mercurial even if they weren't on drugs. Tonight, indolent hash dealer Moz (Johnny Vegas) orders pizza from the fascist place across the road, before trying to win his girlfriend back. He's soon distracted when a friend is stabbed and has to fight for his life, a development that would make virtually any other show quicken its pace. Not Ideal.

Graham Duff on Ideal Series 7

Ideal returns to BBC Three tonight for a seventh series at 10.30pm. Writer Graham Duff explains the art of finding a special guest...

While some of BBC3's other long-running sitcoms have been somewhat, well, awful, Ideal soldiers on, managing to be sometimes brilliant, oft-times puerile and always interesting. In the first episode Johnny Vegas is joined by guest stars - weirdly, the usually reticent and annoying Paul Weller comes across as quite playful and the ever lovely Kara Tointon (still wearing Strictly make-up) is her ever lovely self.

As for the plot, Moz wins back his Jenny but she's joined the police force, which makes things difficult. It's not perfect but you can't be too hard on something with full-on musical moments, some good jokes and some underplayed poignant drama too.