The Wright Way

I would surely die if I watched more than five minutes

I lasted all of five minutes. Not a cynically calculated five minutes designed to enable me to write the phrase 'The Wright Way is so bad that I could only watch five minutes' but a totally sincere five minutes (or possibly less) of such agonised writhing and head-burying-beneath-the-duvet that I knew with every fibre of my being that were I not to switch the iPad off that very second I would surely die.

How did Ben Elton's 'The Wright Way' get it so wrong?

The old comedy adage says that if there's nothing funny left to say, make a penis joke. Perhaps this explains why The Wright Way is just one big knob gag, then.

Once upon a time, Ben Elton wrote sharp, funny comedy that aimed for a mass audience yet didn't seem to care too much if it was too close to the knuckle for the great British public. But that was a while back. Now, sadly, the health-and-safety-culture-spoofing The Wright Way, which this week finds Gerald trying to prove that playing conkers is dangerous, merely seems rather dated. Quite remarkably, it also proves that, yes, you can try to squeeze too many cock and humping jokes into 30 minutes.

Basildon Health & Safety boss shrugs off attention

A health and safety officer has become the butt of all jokes after a new sitcom launched focusing on the work of Baselricky Town Council.

Ben Elton: ex-darling of the Left who can do no right

Artsy liberals are determined not to laugh at their old hero Ben Elton's new sitcom The Wright Way.

I don't know what I was doing in 1995, apart from watching a lot less telly than I do now. Ben Elton at that time was sending himself up. One sketch parodying his oh so right-on image had him chasing Page 3 models round a park to reprimand them and tricking heterosexual couples into becoming gay. And did that stem the sneers? Not really, and then he gave his critics more ammo by selling out to the West End and its Tory-supporting high priests. Thus, The Wright Way is his first sitcom in 11 years.

A soft target Elton may be, but some things have simply got to be done: this is dire. Jokes from the 70s. Jokes suggesting The Wright Way might therefore be ironic (it's not; just dire). Slapstick involving hand-dryers. Knob jokes. Jokes about speed-bumps (the "hero" is a health and safety officer). Jokes about how long women spend in the bathroom. Jokes about the M25. Jokes which end: "...the same excuse the Nazis tried". Unbelievably, the studio audience laugh. That free wine must have been very good.

New BBC comedy by Ben Elton is the worst sitcom ever

Everything is diabolical. From so-called jokes about women taking forever in the bathroom, to the word "erection".

Do comedians lose their edge as they get older?

Ben Elton's new BBC sitcom The Wright Way has received a critical mauling. At 53, is he too old now to cut it as a comedian?

Somewhere out there in this mad world, where Uruguayans bite Serbians and we are all travelling to hell in a handcart, there are presumably many people who find sitcoms like The Wright Way funny. It's hard to believe, but we have little choice, because the alternative explanation for the existence of Ben Elton's ranty new show is that the BBC knew it was a mirthless dog and still commissioned it on the strength of Elton's name. Either way, you have to laugh, or else you'd cry.

The saying goes that if you've got nothing good to say, say nothing at all. So when it comes to Ben Elton's new BBC sitcom The Wright Way, my review is as follows.

That is all.