The Royal Bodyguard

The Royal Bodyguard review: Back to (old) school comedy

It is indeed perfect family viewing this Christmas, and unless you're offended by a few Borat-style comedy accents, you need not worry about any shock factor here.

Both far too much and not nearly enough were being asked of David Jason in his new vehicle, a sitcom entitled The Royal Bodyguard (BBC1), in which he plays a royal bodyguard. (That is, a bodyguard to the Queen, not a member of the royal family trying his hand at gainful employment. Sorry. I thought I'd clear that up first in case you were, quite legitimately, slightly fogged after two days of feasting and merriment.)

It was a part that required much gun-in-hand rolling under beds, leaping on to horses and hiding in hostess trollies and not much in the way of droll delivery of verbal gags. Writing the part for - or giving it to - Jason was to play to all of his weaknesses and none of his strengths. Superbly comically deft and nimble, no one could claim - even before he turned 71 - that he was an athletic actor. It's all in the timing and fleeting flickers across his vividly labile face. Don't give him broad slapstick - unless it's That Fall, 30 years ago, through That Bar - it's too agonising a waste.

Beyond that, the best way to describe The Royal Bodyguard is that for those that like that sort of thing, this is the sort of thing they like. People saying "Please tell me it's not Hubble, sir" and it turning out to be Hubble. Hubble trying to eat a whole lobster with a knife and fork. A man described by his superiors as "a walking disaster" accidentally saving the Queen from an assassination attempt to their furious disbelief (you almost expected an instruction to "Press the red button if you want comedy steam graphics coming out of their ears!") and so, terribly on. The best the spirit of Christmas can lead me to say about it is no more.

One doesn't expect a sitcom at this time of year to revolve around a plot to assassinate the Queen, especially one starring Sir David of Del Boy. But The Royal Bodyguard - which marks his return to BBC comedy after several austere years on t'other side - does just that, albeit in the most inoffensively silly way.

His titular security ace is a Clouseau-esque incompetent utterly convinced of his superior prowess; hardly an original creation, but Jason plays him with his usual aplomb. And you get the sense that he's really enjoying playing comedy again. But at 71, watching him take constant pratfalls - despite the understandable use of doubles at times - can be more worrying than funny: the latterday Norman Wisdom effect.

But I can't deny the appeal of this cheerfully basic slapstick farce from the writers behind The Worst Week of My Life, which exists purely to make its audience laugh and nothing more. Its very predictability is part of the gag, although it remains to be seen whether it can sustain over a series.

Incidentally, the only thing he doesn't fall through in episode one is a bar-hatch. But there's still time yet. Come on, Dave, just for old time's sake.

David Jason believes royals will approve comedy

Sir David Jason believes his new comedy will meet with royal approval.

The spirit of Clouseau lives on in Guy Hubble (David Jason - looking a tad aged for some of these stunts, bless him), an incompetent chosen as head of security at the Palace. He got the job because he saved the Queen from a runaway carriage, having accidentally scared the horses in the first place. If your idea of hilarity is Mr Bean, or Jason falling through the pub bar in Only Fools and Horses, then look no further.

Inexplicably scheduled at an hour when the audience most likely to appreciate it has long been tucked up in bed, this exceedingly silly six-parter stars national treasure David Jason as Capt Guy Hubble, a lifelong soldier and ageing bungler promoted to head Buckingham Palace security. Fortunately, the world's terrorists display an incompetence that outshines even Hubble's ineptitude.

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