Allow me to fill that gap then – I think it’s a fantastic show. I love the way it moves from socially awkward cringe-comedy into genuinely unsettling material, with hilarity every step of the way.

I’ve never seen “Blessed”, but if it’s even less funny than Little Britain, then it must be shite indeed.

Indeed, but the “Horse and Hound” interviews are comic genius. Perhaps the only bit of real genius in the whole film.

Good grief, and I thought I was alone in being untickled by LB.

Ditto me. I thought it was my guilty secret. One that I shouldn’t give up even on the rack and after the pygmy in the gimp mask had been, erm, unmasked.

My impression is that the split on Blackadder was that Elton managed, so to speak, the tactics – the laugh-out-loud quote-in-the-playground-the-next-day one-liners – which were extremely good, while Curtis managed the strategy – the longer jokes, the narrative, the historical references, the characters and so on. This would probably explain why the first series felt so slack, and the situational (rather than verbal) comedy of films like “Four Weddings”.
And oh, lord, “The Vicar of Dibley”. Saw that once. Awful.

I haven’t read Ben Elton’s books, but I still feel I should stand up for the man. He was good in the early days on BBC2 and later Channel 4. And having seen, for the first time, some of the middle section of “Notting Hill” at the weekend, frankly, I cannot believe that Richard Curtis was the funny one who wrote Blackadder. Mind you, I could have said that after one episode of the female vicar sitcom as well.

What we need is another series of Paul Whitehouse’s “Happiness.” Not least because it used Johnny Vegas properly.

Or maybe it’s because I’m a Northerner.

Empathy? Tell that to Keith Laird…

(Excerpt from conversation with my wife, along the general lines of “what were they thinking of?”:
Her: Channel Four probably didn’t think there really was a council fire officer in Bolton.
Me: Channel Four probably didn’t think there really was a Bolton.)

(And yes, I love it too. It’s just extraordinary to think that something with such breadth was written by a lad of eighteen.)

Or maybe it’s because I’m a Northerner.