Mountain Goats

Some saucier-than-usual hijinks in the Old Goat, unofficial headquarters of Glencoe's least reliable mountain-rescue volunteers. Landlady Jules is hoping a tie-up with a pub megachain will increase her profit margin while expert loafer Jimmy has his head turned by a sharp-tongued female walk-in. The crackle of sexual tension threatens to set the heather alight, and with his manky bobble hat and scratchy grey stubble, lovestruck Jimmy seems to be channelling the spirit of Last Of The Summer Wine's Compo at his most libidinous.

This broad, shouty, defiantly old-fashioned sitcom set in a Glencoe pub has its detractors, but there's a certain pleasure in seeing an archetypal ne'er-do-well, kilted malingerer Jimmy (Jimmy Chisholm), hurtle so confidently toward disaster. To the dismay of landlady Jules (the formidable Sharon Rooney), Jimmy is hailed as a hero after saving a young hiker from an unlikely accident. But even as the endorsement deals roll in, the incorrigible boozehound has already sown the seeds of his downfall.

The mountain rescue volunteers are obliged to retake their fitness exams or have their operation shut down, in another outing for this very likable sitcom from BBC Scotland. Can Jimmy - "Never the moistest cake in the Bake Off" - lay off the Old Goat grog long enough to complete the assault course? "My GP informs me I have the liver of a man half my age!" "To be fair, Jimmy, that's largely down to the transplant." For more of this kind of thing - and some marvellously crude one-liners too - step right up.

'Mountain Goats' (BBC1) review

The sad thing is, I simply don't find Mountain Goats funny - and please don't think that I'm being disingenuous when I say that that's 'sad'.

Mountain Goats, a new sitcom from BBC Scotland following the lives of a disparate bunch of mountain rescue volunteers, was on altogether more reassuring territory. If UnREAL were a drink it would be half a pint of tequila. Mountain Goats would be milky PG Tips with two sugars, delivered complete with canned laughter. The writing is sometimes sharp and funny ("You can't sort everything with violence, Jules. This is not The Muppets") but the acting is hammy. Still, it's got promise. And there's not a tin whistle in earshot, which has to count for something.

One programme that I'm done with after the first episode is newish sitcom Mountain Goats which made its debut this week. Mountain Goats started life as a pilot episode entitled Miller's Mountain and after sampling that solo instalment I didn't feel it would see the light of day again. BBC One don't appear to have that much faith in the show as they've put it in the 10:35pm death slot in which most subpar sitcoms usually find themselves. Despite Mountain Goats not being as offensive as previous comedies that have occupied that slot, such as The Wright Way or Father Figure, there was still little merit to the show. The programme focus on a ragtag group of mountain rescue operatives led by the feckless Jimmy Miller (Jimmy Chisholm) who appears to have little authority over his fellow volunteers. Among the group is the young mummy's boy Conor (Kevin Mains), the rather slow Bill (David Ireland) and the cheerful Bernie (Kathryn Howden). The main problem I have with Mountain Goats is that the majority of the characters are so one-dimensional that it's hard to either care or believe in them. Although Jimmy is cut with the same cloth as a Captain Mainwaring or a Basil Fawlty at least those two characters had at least one quality you could sympathise with. Not so Jimmy who spends the entire episode being rude to everyone he meets and bizarrely alienating his new landlady by singing a Wham! song out loud. I have to hold my hands up and say that there were about two or three jokes during the half hour that at least raised a smile but that's about it. Meanwhile the cast struggle with their poorly written roles which is particularly evident when the brilliant Sharon Rooney has little to do as feisty landlady Jules. In fact the only member of the cast who seemed to be making the best of a bad situation was Doon Mackichan as Conor's mother. It still annoys me that BBC One still can't produce a decent sitcom these days as the channel was once the play to go to for a good laugh. Instead I sat them almost embarrassed by what I saw up on the screen which amounted to a very old-fashioned sitcom whose jokes were about as dated as its situation.

Review: Who are these people, who'll laugh at anything?

The canned laughter and lukewarm gags teleport this sitcom back to the 1970s, a bygone age of TV. Feeling nostalgic? Go and buy a Wagon Wheel instead.

Back for a full series despite last year's pilot, this retrograde sitcom follows the antics of a group of mountain rescue volunteers in the Highlands. That it's static, stagey and not really about anything - they don't do any rescuing tonight, preferring to stay in the pub in front of the live studio audience - wouldn't be a problem if the jokes were belters. But they're half-hearted, old or just baffling, driven by some weak characterisation. Even Sharon Rooney and Doon Mackichan are made to look mediocre.

Mountain rescue comedy aims to scale peaks of humour

Mountain Goats star Kevin Mains says new series is a cross between Monty Python and Father Ted - and is set to be a winner.