Tonight, David Jason's Clouseau-like royal bodyguard is charged with protecting a redheaded prince on a shopping trip, but an armed robbery at a jewellery boutique escalates the situation into a national emergency. Cue hi-jinks as Guy Hubble (Jason) makes a succession of schoolboy errors while attempting a rescue. This sitcom is a complete flight of fancy and a welcome respite from all those comedies about the frustrations of everyday life. Most of all, it's a terrific platform from which Jason can show off his peerless comic timing.

David Jason's The Royal Bodyguard slammed by fans

More than a million people turned off Sir David Jason's new sitcom The Royal Bodyguard on Boxing Day - with thousands of his fans saying it made him look like a right plonker.

David Jason's 'The Royal Bodyguard' logs 7.1m for BBC1

Sir David Jason's The Royal Bodyguard pulled in over 7 million viewers last night, according to the latest overnight data.

I realised that The Royal Bodyguard despised me about five or six minutes in. Mark Bussell and Justin Sbresni's new comedy began with a backstory prologue to introduce us to its central character, Guy Hubble, a blazered ex-military jobsworth who has a job supervising the Buckingham Palace car park.

As the Royal Household wait for the Queen to climb into the royal coach, Hubble spots a stray crisp packet on the gravel and leaps forward to spare Her Majesty this distressing sight. And then, seeing that one of the Coldstream Guards is asleep at his post, he inflates the bag and pops it in his face, with a bang like a pistol going off. The coach horses bolt, with the Sovereign dangling from the steps. Having set this disaster in motion, Hubble then puts things rights, seconds away from a crash that would have put Prince Charles on the throne. How did this idiot get a senior post as a royal bodyguard? That's how.

It's not really a complicated comic idea, this. Think Inspector Clouseau and you're halfway there. Hubble, played by David Jason with a bantam-strut of self-regard, is chaos in trousers. But just in case we're a little slow on the uptake, the writers supply an exasperated superior to underline things for us. And then he finishes his little speech with the ponderous line: "With him in that job... anything could happen." Well, thank you for the clarification, but I'd actually worked that out five minutes ago. The character's the idiot, not the viewer. What followed was, as they say, "predictably hilarious", which means not terribly hilarious at all, unless you have a thing about seeing David Jason in his underwear hanging off a balcony. Nothing wrong with a cartoon, of course, but all too often this one is crudely drawn.

Clashing with a pair of sinister Slav assassins who talked about "shaking the vurld to its core", Hubble managed to cock everything up until his final cock-up inadvertantly saved Her Majesty and he was the hero of the hour again. It contained two sight-gags that made me laugh - one when Hubble attempted to eat a lobster with a knife and fork and another when a room-service trolley concealing him began inching out of the room propelled by his fingers - but another attempt at critical charity failed. I wrote in my notes that I thought the faults lay more in the direction than the script, since if it was played a little more deadpan some of the comedy would work much better. But then the credits revealed that the writers had also produced and directed it, so I'm afraid they're just going to have to carry the can.

This is David Jason's first new comedy series in 20 years - but what a disappointment it turns out to be.

It was written by Justin Sbresni and Mark Bussell - the creators of The Worst Week Of My Life - but the humour feels creaky and out-dated.

In a set-up suspiciously reminiscent of Rowan Atkinson's hapless spy Johnny English, Jason stars as Guy Hubble who is mistakenly promoted from the Buckingham Palace car park detail to head of Royal security, only to make a predictable hash of everything he touches.

In the first episode tonight, he's at a hotel in Scotland trying to foil an assassination attempt on the Queen.

Just as there are plenty of viewers out there who remain inexplicably enthralled by New Tricks, I suppose there might be a ready-made audience who are prepared to laugh at the sight of Jason in his Y-fronts. I can't see the attraction myself.

Interview: David Jason, actor

We've loved him as Del Boy and Jack Frost, and this Christmas David Jason returns to the small screen with another hit - an old-fashioned comedy about a bumbling royal bodyguard.

David Jason on comedy career & not pushing boundaries

The star of The Royal Bodyguard is not keen on swearing, violence - or interviews, he tells Andrew Duncan.

David Jason plays a bumbling buffoon called Guy Hubble, who becomes an accidental hero when, as Head of Security at Buckingham Palace, he rescues the Queen from her runaway carriage.

Hubble is appointed to guard his sovereign at all times. But everyone knows he's an idiot, including the high-up who appointed him (the magnificent Geoffrey Whitehead).

This new series is the most undemanding of farces, involving Jason being caught on a balcony in his underwear, hiding under tables and fighting with a suit of armour.

Both far too much and not nearly enough were being asked of David Jason in his new vehicle, a sitcom entitled The Royal Bodyguard (BBC1), in which he plays a royal bodyguard. (That is, a bodyguard to the Queen, not a member of the royal family trying his hand at gainful employment. Sorry. I thought I'd clear that up first in case you were, quite legitimately, slightly fogged after two days of feasting and merriment.)

It was a part that required much gun-in-hand rolling under beds, leaping on to horses and hiding in hostess trollies and not much in the way of droll delivery of verbal gags. Writing the part for - or giving it to - Jason was to play to all of his weaknesses and none of his strengths. Superbly comically deft and nimble, no one could claim - even before he turned 71 - that he was an athletic actor. It's all in the timing and fleeting flickers across his vividly labile face. Don't give him broad slapstick - unless it's That Fall, 30 years ago, through That Bar - it's too agonising a waste.

Beyond that, the best way to describe The Royal Bodyguard is that for those that like that sort of thing, this is the sort of thing they like. People saying "Please tell me it's not Hubble, sir" and it turning out to be Hubble. Hubble trying to eat a whole lobster with a knife and fork. A man described by his superiors as "a walking disaster" accidentally saving the Queen from an assassination attempt to their furious disbelief (you almost expected an instruction to "Press the red button if you want comedy steam graphics coming out of their ears!") and so, terribly on. The best the spirit of Christmas can lead me to say about it is no more.

Sit back, pour yourself an after-dinner drink and enjoy a really good laugh as David Jason presents Christmas clips from The Goon Show, Morecambe and Wise, Only Fools and Horses and The Royle Family. And there are even a few choice words from Ronnie Corbett.