Ernie Wise

Morecambe and Wise, The Royals of Northern humour, have also started a new series on BBC1. People point with pride to the stage knights and dames who are now delighted to be guests on the show. Never the last to point the finger I must mention that Tony Snowden does the sets. You will see a specimen of his work in this week's Radio Times.

Morecambe and Wise give freshness to very venerable material indeed. They got a lot of mileage last night out of knickers, bloomers, and, incredibly, drawers. If a joke doesn't work. they work at it until it does.

This peripatetic pair ("Do what?" asks the idiotic one in horn-rimmed glasses) have perfected the moth-eaten to a real art. Generations of grease-painted clowns could only nod their approval.