To think that if Victoria Wood...

[tokyonambu]

...wants people to trust her judgement on what is funny, she should try making some programmes that are, in fact, funny?

I don't think the criticism was to do with works canteens being defunct...they're still very much in existance and uniformly grim...

I love Steptoe and also Rising Damp! "Oh Miss Jones!" the mere sight of Frances De La Tour makes me laugh!

"lumley was amaaaaazing in up in town."

I bought it on DVD afterwards, having only caught a few of them. They're just perfect, perfect television. It looks so slight, but it's intricately constructed to give the appearance of being casual.

Blick wrote Marion and Geoff. Which I thought was unspeakable.

"Factory Canteens, eh? We all know about those, eh? Eh? Eh?"
i was responding to that from tokyo.

" Rising Damp!"

Stunning, aren't they?

Probably the cast make it, because the rest of the writer's CV is absolute dreck. The DVD stores are not going to troubled by people desperate to buy " The Squirrels, Only When I Laugh, The Bounder, Duty Free, Singles, Haggard and Home to Roost."

Duty Free! Nooooooo!

Home to Roost! Noooooo!

What was that grim one set in a hospital? The theme went "I'm H.A.P.P.Y., I'm H.A.P.P.Y., I know I am, I'm sure I am... and so on...it used to get me down when I was about ten!

That was 'Only When I Laugh' I think.

Yes yes! Rising Damp is imo totally brilliant. Another one for me that I love is Hi De Hi.

In the 80s, when I was working at the Manchester Royal Infirmary, we did have a works canteen - perhaps that is why it rang bells for me.

My sister works in a place with a canteen...I think some people are so far removed from the real world that they have no idea what work is like for the average person!

I do a good impression of Mrs Overall when I struggle down our office with a tray full of tea
And I literally mean a tray full of tea.

The funniest comediene is IMHO is Sarah Millican. I saw her before she was famous at the Edinburgh stand ( go if you get the chance it's fantastic....usually) and I laughed so loud I thought I'd be escorted out Probably peed a bit too Was so happy when I saw her on Apollo etc.. she deserves it. Stuff she says live is pretty blue though.

I think Victoria Wood USED to be very funny indeed, but that sketch show (which I was so looking forward to seeing) at Christmas was awful.

Dinnerladies was excellent, the dialogue was brilliant I think, and the strange conversational tangents all teh characters went down. And brilliant acting by everyone in it.

And also Acorn Antiques was excellent. Ooh I do adore Celia Imrie.

Julie Walters was far funnier in the past when she was just a character actress and not a bloody national treasure playing characters with terminal illnesses.

Some old comedy shows do bear up to repeated viewing - Fawlty Towers, Blackadder, Rising Damp, Porridge will never date. However some old shows I think are dire - I saw an episode of Bread recently and it was awful, so not funny, and Some Mothers Do have Em makes me cringe. And WHAT the hell was Keeping Up Appearances all about looking back now. Awful.

French and Saunders was never bloody funny, look at the travesty of the Vicar of Dibley for crying out loud.

Lol at Duty Free. WHAT the bloody hell was the premise of that show. Serial Shagger Keith Baron goes on holiday with hatchet faced wife and tries to cop off with blonde. A whole series!

Watching. A 'comedy' about a birdwatchers with a scouse girlfriend.

Never the Twain - two old farts in an antiques shop who get up to random exploits with 'hilarious' consequences. A middle class southern Last of the Summer Wine.

I haven't found her funny since about 1988. She seems a nice woman, though.

all that being said, everyone's saying how BRILLIANT the inbetweeners is, whereas i think it's just okayish.

'No.

Just no.

She is not funny.

She is to comedy what Pam Ayers is to poetry.'

I really agree with this comment.

The 'Lets do it song' got the odd smirk out of me but that was 30 years ago.

I don't get French and Saunders either.

Amazingly there are things that make my ribs ache but unfortunatly this three ladies don't do it for me.

Oh God, Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em - that made me cringe when I was a child, never mind now.

I am of the V Wood was funny in the Eighties, but that last Christmas was dire' school of thought.

I don't get the Inbetweeners either. Just midly amusing imo.

I also didn't get Gavin and Stacey (agree with daftpunk tyhough re the brilliance of Aliosn Steadman)

first series of G&S was charming, then the writers read too many of their own reviews.

VW was absolutely right for her time. I think she's great. Acorn Antiques and 'Two Soups' Who doesn't go into an old cafe and think of 'Two Soups'???

But then, I love Ever Decreasing Circles...

Tell you who is very brilliant...Julia Davies who wrote and starred in Nighty Night....I know she was in Gavin and Stacy (don't get that either) I wish she would do something else soon...

i know everyone mentions acorn antiques but for me her gmtv sketches and the fake obs docs were the best. (obv the celeb obs doc on Acorn Antiques was a triumph...)

Julia Davies is, indeed, brilliant. Underrated too.

Oh I loved Julie Walters playing the posh actress playing Mrs Overall. Brilliant.

Also the mock doc of the cross channel swimmer was brilliant I think.

and wasn't there one about a couple going for IVF?

They wanted a test tube baby..because they only had a tiny flat and not much room for a full size one...