The Last Leg

Before the Paralympic opening ceremony - oddly uncaptivating Brazilian music and dance, saved by the disabled pianist João Carlos Martins and (again) the stadium's digital floor - there was much delight to be had in The Last Leg: Live from Rio, in which Channel 4 trumped in two hours the BBC's recent 17 or whatever weeks of coverage by being in possession of 1) a tiny budget; 2) a refreshing lack of deference; and 3) a grown-up sense of humour.

Adam Hills, Alex Brooker and Josh Widdecombe had great gags, winning gags, about disability and even about the flight over to Rio: ribald laughter about leg-room, and hand-space in the overhead lockers, and the fact that it was the safest plane that had ever flown - "we had all the shooters". Clare Balding, who has had a deserved couple of weeks back in Britain to check her bank account - don't get me wrong, she's lovely and deserves every tin groat - looked, on The Last Leg sofa, both shocked and delighted. Almost as if she might be allowed, in the next 10 days, to talk not about heroes or legends, but just about humans.