The Defining the Norm Awards: the nominees

Comedian Will Franken honours the most conformist acts at the Edinburgh Fringe.

David Jason accused of racism after mis-telling joke

David Jason has been accused of racism after mis-telling one of the Queen's jokes in front of w ill.i.am on live TV this afternoon.

David Jason sends letter ahead of OFAH funeral

Sir David Jason has written to the family of the late Keith Drew, whose funeral will have an Only Fools And Horses theme.

Radio Times review

Still Open All Hours is one of those comedies that lasts just 30 minutes, yet by the end of the episode you swear you've just lost three hours.

Maybe it's something to do with the leisurely/laboured comedy business and the well-signalled slapstick, tonight involving a gag with a vacuum cleaner than anyone born before 1960 could see coming from 30 miles away in a North Sea fog.

But never mind, a gentle, unexamined life potters on inside that corner shop on an unspecified street in an unspecified era, as wily owner Granville (David Jason) takes delivery of a parcel from North Korea and tries to fix up hopeless Gastric with a date.

Radio Times review

It's easy to see why Roy Clarke's revival of his much-loved Ronnie Barker comedy Open All Hours is such a blazing hit. It takes its audience back to comfortable times, when being from Yorkshire was inherently funny, when men were hapless fools, women were either battleaxes or well-upholstered sirens and when everyone loved a bit of mild smut.

There isn't a mean bone in Still Open All Hours's body as grown men have silly fun with an over-sized Christmas tree, a sinister one-eyed Santa mannequin and a trampoline. Parsimonious local shopkeeper Granville (David Jason) remains at the mercy of the supernaturally self-operating till and the terrifying women get all the best lines. "How long since you were in curlers on a Wednesday afternoon?" wonders flinty Mrs Featherstone of comely Gladys Emmanuel.

The originalDanger Mouse was an Eighties cartoon on ITV that was essentially a rough parody of James Bond. DM, with his eye patch and his flying car, was charged with saving the world from a large toady Blofeld called Baron Greenback. David Jason used to voice the mouse with Terry Scott as Penfold. Now Alexander Armstrong is "DM" and the comedian Kevin Eldon as Penfold the hamster.

I also wondered what children would make of Danger Mouse v2.0's narrative style, which was so self-reflexive and knowing that at times it was like an episode of Sherlock. "Now, the world's 12th greatest sidekick Penfold will speak the first line of the new series," said our narrator early on, before going on to point out the show's improbabilities, saying "I'm sure the writers will have perfectly reasonable answers to these questions."

But just when I was about to get really angry about what had been done to another childhood memory I went back and watched a few vintage DMs. It turned out they were all pretty arch too.

My instinct was that all of this would go way over the heads of my kids, who tend to laugh at pratfalls and fart gags (and I hardly need stress that I have no idea where they got that from). But I have a feeling that the wordiness and the ironic humour seeps in. That might be one reason why I remember Danger Mouse fondly without, until this week, being quite sure what it was that I fondly remembered.

Pictures: David Jason on Still Open All Hours set

It was the role which made him one of the country's rising comedy talents back in the 1970s. And it appears David Jason was thrilled to return to his role of hapless shopworker Granville on the newly rebooted Open All Hours.

Radio Times review

Writer Roy Clarke's revisiting of the beloved Ronnie Barker vehicle is completely timeless, which is doubtless part of its appeal. There are no crude 21st-century technological innovations in that little corner shop in Yorkshire, it could be set in any year from the 1930s.

There's also a pervading feeling of a cosy community of the type that probably either doesn't exist or never did exist, as a series of oddballs passes through the doors of Arkwright's stores. Mrs Dawlish (Vicki Pepperdine) is the comedy nuisance here, a snobby local who's taken aback that such an old-fashioned corner shop is still flourishing.

But there are signs that Granville (David Jason) is modernising - he wants to open a coffee shop!