The British Sketch Show Again

Can you please allow me this opportunity to write once again about sketch shows. In particular Ruddy Hell It's Harry and Paul. I was right. Three episodes in and it's as funny as a Little Britain Christmas Special (with special guest Catherine Tate).

What Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse (and maybe their writers if they don't do it all themselves, I don't know, I haven't checked) have done is literally write enough material for one single half hour of comedy, some of it unfunny.

They've then repeated the same material over and over again. Yes, yes, I've written about this sort of thing in an earlier entry. But where they've differed from Little Britain, or Catherine Tate, is that they haven't put the sketches in slightly different settings. They've just done the same sketches, in the same settings, with perhaps a bit of a different conversation.

So, we have the posh builders talking about Stephen Fry one week, and Alan Yentob another. In one sketch, Nelson Mandela tries to sell alcopops, and the next sketch he's selling absinthe in the same manner. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs get overexcited about computers in the same party every week. I got the joke the first time. If I want to enjoy it again, I can watch the programme again. I don't need it repeating. I'm not stupid.

This week's was particularly bad as there were about five (very small) sketches where Harry Enfield asks Paul Whitehouse for different Barbican branded products. These were about as amusing as the death of a much loved pet and the repetition was like reliving the awful body discovery over and over again.

Very soon, comedy sketch shows will consist of one sketch filmed in front of a green screen being repeated on an endless loop with minor changes to the background on every reset. The children will love it. But society will have broken down by then and we'll all be dying of special space diseases.

Didn't really watch much last night, I was out you see

• I did watch the Apprentice tonight though, and it was the best yet. Lohit was team leader and completely whipped Paul's sorry behind. I can't believe how much everyone has it against Adam. He's got a bit of a miserable demeanour about him, and he made a bit of a mess of the marketing, but if all he lost you was a maximum of £50, and you lost by £600, then you can't blame the poor lad. He did his best, bless him. So, I want Adam to win now. Or maybe Kristina as she really laid into Paul. I'm also very disturbed to find that I'm five years older than Katie. I'd have put the vicious harridan at least ten years older than me.

I'm off to Grantham tomorrow for a conference! I'm going to ask questions on technical things that are work related! Wish me luck readers!