Clive James

Nor does Not the Nine o'Clock News (BBC2) show any signs of sweat at the typewriter - which always means that the performers must sweat instead.

Ripping Yarns (BBC2) has once again been an uneven series, but at least it had the odd glimmer of verbal inspiration.

A desperately nervous piece about three desperately clever people in love, it is not much of a play, principally because it is desperately short of good lines. But given lashings of style it could still be brought off. Unfortunately in this production most of the style was confined to the costumes, decor and props.

In The Benny Hill Show (Thames) pretty girls kept lifting their skirts and shoving their bottoms at the camera. Benny's mistake is to suppose that his own face has as much to offer, even when he equips it with a smirk. His confidence in his own naughty charm seems to have reached the point where he favours worthless material over any other kind. Pee-pee, poo-poo, cock caught in an accordion.

Spike Milligan also tells blue jokes but most of them are funny and he has a million other ideas as well. Q8 (BBC2) once again b=proves that he is the fons et origo of contemporary British rubbish. Half the sketches get lost in their own entrails, but it doesn't matter. Spike is at his best when the number is collapsing all around him. He should not, however, make casual jokes about Zyklon B. The time to trivialise such a memory has not yet arrived.

Back in Britain, it is almost a relief to turn on Blankety Blank (BBC1), hosted by Terry Wogan. True, this is an American format, which has merely been transplanted like a tuft of hair. But compared with an American quiz show host, Terry Wogan is Doctor Johnson. He is capable of the occasional spontaneous remark. It is not a very memorable occasional spontaneous remark, but he is capable of it.

Vaudeville never died. It turned into the Muppets. The whole show is saturated with show-biz lore. 'And now, ladies and gentlemen,' cries Kermit desperately, 'comedy magic with Fozzie the Bear!' Such last-gasp scraps of patter have the hollow ring of authenticity. The same applies to Fozzie's cry for help. 'I'm dying out here, Kermit.' Similarly, everything the pit musicians say to each other is spot on - the words are as rich as the melodies, which is saying a lot, because nobody in the Muppet orchestra can blow a note without reminding the adult viewer of the lost days when jazz was a language, not a statement.

One or two of the light entertainment shows actually succeeded in being entertaining. Morecambe and Wise (Thames) had a big ratings success. Something like four-fifths of the nation thought they were wonderful. Indeed they are, but in moving to ITV they have lost the benefits of the BBC's production know-how and limitless back-up facilities. To the critical eye they were on thin ice. Routines tended to be only half thought out.

For an example of what the Beeb's production values can do to enhance mediocre material, there was, or were, The Two Ronnies (BBC1). Ronnie Barker has a very good news number, full of information to help make the Common Market more confusing. 'Here is a graph. Here is another graph. Here is the first graph upside-down.' But generally the show's level of verbal invention was somewhere between pun and innuendo, with words like 'commitments' being employed to mean 'balls.'

On the night the BBC went off the air, the opposition fielded A Few of Our Favourite Things (Thames), starring Eric Sykes. Written entirely by Sykes himself, it was a very funny show. One sketch grew out of another. It was the Python no-punchline principle, but Sykes has incorporated it into his writing without easing up on his sense of discipline. The result is a sort of coherent Milligan-ese, with overtones of Tommy Coo... but this is to sound academic.