The Wright Way

10 of the worst UK comedies that need to stay buried

Trawling the archives of the last 30 or so years of British comedy has, for the most part, been a pleasure. I've discovered shows I didn't know existed, unearthed gems which were completely side-lined by the cultural mainstream, and reintroduced myself to the glory of the likes of Nathan Barley and Marion And Geoff. I haven't seen sunlight in days and I think I've started to develop rickets, but overall, the search has been worth it. The problem is that while pigs may become adept at snuffling for truffles in the comedy forest, they're also prone to unearth the odd heaving turd whose obscurity is likely merited. That said, these are the 10 British comedies which really need to stay buried.

It would have been great if The Wright Way had worked. Ben Elton - instrumental in the creation of classics like The Young Ones and Blackadder - had by 2013 completed his transition from comedy hero to punchline (Get a Grip, his current affairs show featuring Alexa Chung, hadn't helped). Elton's place in the narrative of British TV history was becoming incomprehensible. But The Wright Way, sadly, was irredeemably bad.

Centring on an uptight health-and-safety worker called Gerald Wright (your cue to groan internally), we follow the man of the half-hour as he battles with his daughter, her girlfriend Victoria, and his colleagues. For its laughs, The Wright Way mines the topic of health and safety regulation, which is bad enough for the most radically right-on comedian of the 80s. But its main crime has to be the treatment of Beattie Edmondson, who plays Victoria. Jennifer Saunders' daughter was dealt one of the worst hands in sitcom history when she was cast as the cringe-a-second DJ, who recites youth jargon (and Jamaican patois) so awkward it's like she's a 54-year-old father of three channeling the spirit of a 21-year-old (oh...). Elton may have been willing to further sully his name, but he didn't have to drag the next generation down with him.

It's becoming harder and harder to remember the days when Ben Elton was funny - his latest comedic misfire was thankfully axed after a single series, with the BBC's controller of comedy commissioning Shane Allen blaming Twitter for "crucifying" the show. What Shane forgot is that Twitter is full of people - it was people that hated The Wright Way. All of the people.

Opinion: The Wright Way is axed. Did Twitter kill it?

There was an interesting suggestion however, that it was not a failure in the ratings department that caused its demise but the vitriolic response to the series on Twitter from Elton-haters.

Wright Way goes wrong: how social media is changing TV

As Ben Elton and Peter Kay feel the heat of Twitter's critics and communal viewing makes a comeback, Mark Lawson asks if broadcasters are running scared.

It seems aeons ago now, but Ben Elton's Young Ones once featured its own spoof ITV sitcom-within-a-sitcom called Oh Crikey, a typical "Oops, where's me trousers" farce. So it's while gazing slack-jawed at The Wright Way that you appreciate just what a journey its creator has been on, from there to here. In tonight's final episode (fingers crossed), Gerald writes F.A.N.N.I.E.S on a whiteboard, Ade Edmondson's daughter spouts more stunningly unfunny patois, and a nation roars in unison: "Your name's Ben Elton - goodnight!"

Beeb is ready to chop Ben Elton's sitcom flop

After being slated as TV's worst-ever sitcom, I hear Ben Elton's disastrous comedy The Wright Way is set to be quietly forgotten.

I had managed to resist the allure of The Wright Way up until this week. If you watched the Ricky Gervais sitcom Extras, you would understand what I mean when I say that The Wright Way is a real world When The Whistle Blows. It is completely, and I mean completely, unredeemable in every conceivable way.

I know that Ben Elton is an easy and popular target nowadays, but let's face it; if this is what he is producing then he kind of deserves it. Perhaps ironically, The Wright Way does everything wrong that it possibly could. The writing is just horrible. Horrible to the point I was physically wincing every couple of minutes. There was even some 'yoot speak' in there this week. Every joke (and I use the term very loosely) was signposted from eight miles off, and almost exclusively unfunny.

The characters are neither believable nor wacky enough to be anything of interest, and the lines are delivered in an off-putting pantomime-style shout which makes the performances stilted to the point of being almost unwatchable.

I spoke last week about not really getting the 'live audience' set up, but that doesn't always mean the death of a show. However, the laughter track on this only highlighted more the complete absence of my laughter. I like to think that I go into things with an open mind, happy to have my predictions shattered, but watching a second episode of this would be tantamount to emotional self immolation.

If you have any love in your heart for the Elton of old, the one who brought us Blackadder and The Young Ones, then I implore you: do not watch this show. Also burn any copies of the Radio Times which list it. And your TiVo box, in case it accidentally records it.

Opinion: The Wright Way - A very, very slight defence

Let's get one thing straight. I'm certainly not backtracking on my opinion of Ben Elton's pitiful sitcom. But at the same time I've found some of the objections to The Wright Way particularly interesting. Maybe it's the rise of Twitter and Facebook, maybe it's just my friends being too choosy, but what it has highlighted in a way I've never noticed to this extent before, is the snobbery about British sitcoms.

A health and safety manager's view on The Wright Way

There's some serious exaggeration going on about health and safety in The Wright Way, says Basildon council's Glynn Gibson - but we have been known to use an acronym or two.