The Mad Bad Ad Show

The Mad Bad Ad Show is a good advert for comedy

While it was a chuckle it's not something I will be tuning in for every week. It wasn't really mad or particularly bad, it's just one more of those panel shows you'll tend to watch if you're in on a Friday night and there's nothing much else on.

The Mad Bad Ad Show review

Arguably the best round in any recent series of The Apprentice is the TV ad task. It was only a matter of time before the panel show shark gobbled up the idea.

If you enjoy the bits in-between the programmes better than the shows ­themselves, then this one is for you.

Mark Dolan hosts a new panel game all about TV commercials featuring guest ­comedians alongside two less comfortable looking advertising industry people.

After some so-so rounds, it culminates in captains Micky ­Flanagan and Mark Watson producing (surprisingly ­rather entertaining) ads of their own for two new made-up products.

There's all sorts of weirdness lurking in the depths of the ad industry, and this new panel show exploits it to the full via quiz questions, challenges and banter. Cheeky cockney Micky Flanagan and self-deprecating Mark Watson are team captains and they're joined by Holly Walsh and Joe Wilkinson in an opening episode themed around confectionery.

Mark Dolan presents this ambitious new comedy panel show about the world of advertising. The set-up is as follows: each week, the two team captains - comedians Micky Flanagan and Mark Watson - are joined by an advertising industry insider and a celebrity guest. The teams are then quizzed about adverts from past and present, as well as being challenged to film their own advert, with the studio audience voting for the best. This first edition focuses on public information films, with ITV's bubbly daytime host Lorraine Kelly and the award-winning stand-up Josh Widdicombe as guests. Sadly, no preview discs were available.

New comedy panel show based entirely around commercials. Old ones. New ones. Funneee foreign ones! No previews were available, but we're hazarding a guess that the glory days of 80s advertising will be thoroughly mined (the washing powder ad with the Daily Mail mum and her skinhead son - "Aowww, mum!"). The hilarity will be leavened by pairing Micky Flanagan and Mark Watson's teams with advertising industry insiders who, we're promised, will provide "genuine insight" into the satanic world of marketing.

Mark Watson: It's a Mad Bad Ad world

I felt the show was quite good while we were in the process of making it, but it's virtually impossible to tell until it's too late; that's one of the perils of TV. It's in a fairly high-profile slot (10pm on Friday), so if people don't take to it, the online criticism will be swift and brutal.

A quick chat with Micky Flanagan

In his pre-comedy career, Micky Flanagan worked, among other things, as a fish porter and furniture maker. Now the Cockney stand-up is lifting the lid on the world of advertising in a new Channel 4 comedy panel show...