Mrs Merton & Malcolm

The BBC has often been guilty of overkilling a good idea, and this is a classic example. Caroline Ahern was astute enough to retire her characters when the joke began to wear thin, but here the BBC refused to let her drop her Mrs Merton character, and instead dragged her into a unnecessary and unamusing extended life.

The humour itself is best described as being subtle, and macabre, and is not to everybody's taste. It might have worked as a late night BBC2 show, but it was not suitable for evening viewing on the flagship channel. Darker than Ronnie Corbett"s "Sorry", and less bizarre than " The League of Gentlemen", it fell uncomfortably between a rock, and a hard place.

Yes take a look at it, you might like it. But I didn't.