‘Vegas seemed drunk as a sailor’

WE’VE reached another Emperor’s New Clothes moment with TV comedy.

Mo Gilligan’s a likeable guy, but his All-Star Happy Hour was comfortably the worst entertainment show aired this year...so far.

The live, televised mess was such a cringe-athon it made you think more kindly of George Galloway’s pussy impression. All over the country, toes must have curled up like Aladdin’s slippers.

Technical problems abounded. The volume plummeted, links conked out and Johnny Vegas seemed as drunk as a sailor on shore leave.

You had to be that sozzled to find contestants shouting “bloodclat!” and “dickhead” as hilarious as they did. As well as delays and repetition, the banter was awkward and the sound quality appalling.

Sharon Osbourne dropped out before it started, proving witches really do have premonition.

Mo’s show made Rob & Romesh Vs Ballet look like comedy genius. It wasn’t. It consisted largely of Beckett and Ranganathan wobbling about in tights looking like the before part of Celebrity Fit Club, and cracking weak, first-thought gags about bums and bellends.

Fans will have loved it, but it wasn’t exactly Rita Rudner claiming she’d quit as a ballerina after injuring a groin muscle, “It wasn’t mine”.

Or Jackie Mason’s “What’s the deal with her dancing on tiptoes? Can’t they find a taller girl?”

TV would generate more muchneeded laughter by going down the

Match Of The Day route and simply re-showing classic stand-up jesters from yesteryear.

Sunday Night At The London Palladium had a vintage clip of Bob Monkhouse, one of our smartest and most inventive patter comics, but not trendy enough for 90s BBC bosses to ever repeat his On The Spot series.

They re-run Bob’s Last Stand on BBC Four now, though, proving Joni Mitchell right – you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.