Stath’s letting show fall flat

STATH in Stath Lets Flats is like a cross between Mr Bean and Nellie Pledge.

The dimwitted Greek-Cypriot letting agent mangles English like the Mind Your Language cast on piece-rate.

“I’m going to be my father soon,” he tells a bloke he mistakes for a client, adding: “Our father to my dad…Son! I’m trying to tell you I’m going to be a dad!”

He croons, “Your teeth is how you breathe” to a baby, right, and points at a pal singing, “The father of the bride!” Asked why, Stath replies: “Because I’m going to be a father.”

Seriously, if he went to a mind-reader they’d charge him half-price.

Jamie Demetriou’s performance is so warm, giving him a bad review feels like kicking Bambi. But the show’s central premise – in fact its only premise – is: Let’s laugh at the soppy immigrant. Alert the thought police!

Incredibly, it’s won three Baftas – one for every viewer. I exaggerate, but not by much.

Curb Your Enthusiasm is in a different league. Overlapping storylines and curmudgeonly encounters build to genuinely hilarious pay-offs.

Tetchy Larry David found a burglar had drowned in his pool. But the pool broke by-laws by not having a fence, which allowed the burglar’s brother to blackmail him…

And Larry was forced to cast his talentless daughter in his new Netflix show... even though the character’s a chubby Latino, not a skinny Jewish girl.

Side-plots involve the dangers of “plopping” – people hurling themselves down on to settees; unpaid debts, and Larry looking befuddled after walking into a glass door, losing girlfriend Lucy Liu because of it.

We also got comedian Albert Brooks’ disastrous “living funeral” which saw Brooks exposed as a Covid hoarder.

It’s like a rawer, ruder, taboobusting version of Seinfeld, which Larry co-created.

Brilliantly cranky George Costanza was based on him.