Adrian Edmondson

Thirty years on from the original The Comic Strip Presents... the gang has reunited for more Enid Blyton-esque larks. Dawn French, Jennifer Saunders, Adrian Edmondson and Peter Richardson revisit the quartet of siblings who once had jolly japes on bikes but now, older but not all that wiser, find themselves beset by sat-nav woes and starring in mobile apps. Washed down with lashings of ginger beer, of course.

Thirty years on from the first Comic Strip Presents episode - the Famous Five parody in which Adrian Edmondson, Dawn French, Jennifer Saunders, Peter Richardson and Timmy the dog went mad in Dorset - here's The Comic Strip Presents... Five Go to Rehab (G.O.L.D.). Dick (Edmondson) is nostalgic for those happy days cycling in the West country, camping, lashings of you-know-which fizzy drink etc, so he gets the old gang back together to pedal down memory lane. The others' hearts aren't really in it though; they've moved on, they're alcoholics, they've got other secrets, they don't want to be there.

Which rather reflects the whole experience I'm afraid. Comedy has moved on; what was once anarchic now isn't. This kind of pastiche feels tired (was it ever that funny?), certainly laboured over an hour. Someone left the top off the ginger beer, for 30 years. No fizz left; it's warm and flat.

Marking 30 years since inaugural Strip offering Five Go Mad in Dorset, Peter Richardson reunites the team in cosy Middle England. Original cast members Jennifer Saunders, Adrian Edmondson and Dawn French (and canine Timmy) star again as the Five, back together after 30 years apart, a spell that has forced four-fifths of the quintet to confront the grim reality of modern life. Following last year's weak Hunt For Tony Blair, this is a pleasing return to form - funny, thrilling and a little touching.

Adrian Edmondson's favourite TV

The comedian, actor and musician Adrian Edmondson on his viewing habits, from The Football League Show to Laurel & Hardy.

Review: Filthy, Rich and Catflap

A nostalgic blast of wayward genius from Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson.

Adrian Edmondson: 'Only brilliant comedy is TV Burp'

Adrian Edmondson reveals his TV likes and dislikes - he's mad for The Muppets and TV Burp but has a downer on Downton Abbey...

Ade Edmondson: 'The BBC is full of wankers'

Bottom star Adrian Edmondson has blasted the BBC for its "non-decision making" and lack of investment in TV comedy. Edmondson, who also starred in BBC hit The Young Ones in the 1980s, told Digital Spy that the broadcaster is "full of w**kers".

Biting political satire has never really been The Comic Strip's main selling point.

But films such as a "A Fistful Of Travellers' Cheques" or "Five Go Mad In Dorset", which took the mickey out of spaghetti westerns and Enid Blyton novels, proved that you don't always need a big target to score a cracking comedy bullseye.

Their latest effort - the first for six years - is a peculiar, stylish mishmash that re-imagines the Iraq Inquiry as a black and white film noir. ­Unfortunately, not all of it works, perhaps because their confusing vision of the 1960s contains songs from both The Beatles and Duran Duran.

That said, Stephen Mangan - of Green Wing and Alan Partridge fame - makes a surprisingly plausible stand-in for the former, guitar-strumming Prime Minister who, very much like Corrie's John Stape, becomes an almost accidental serial killer.

As the bodies pile up, he's pursued by a pair of policemen played by Robbie Coltrane and The ­Inbetweeners' James Buckley, all the while ­maintaining an air of innocence.

There's no appearances from ­stalwarts such as Dawn French or Adrian Edmondson this time around, but Jennifer Saunders pops in with another take on Margaret Thatcher.

We also have Rik Mayall playing a music-hall psychic who makes uncanny predictions about weapons of mass destruction, Peter Richardson, who also directs, pops up as George Bush in gangster mode, and Nigel Planer simply IS Peter Mandelson.

The joke seems to be not how much the actors look like the people they're supposed to be playing, rather how much they don't.

You'd never guess in a million years that John Sessions is supposed to be Norman Tebbit, for instance.