Jan Butlin

Always excluding Monty Python's parrot, I have never seen anything so comprehensively defunct. Picking up one joke gingerly, there are probably three dozen tolerably funny answers to: "There are three million unemployed out there," but "That's not my fault," isn't one of them.

Still, Life Begins At Forty (The Buntings are expecting a baby Bunting) made my toes curl inside my socks for Rosemary Leach and Derek Nimmo - decent actors who did not deserve this. The cast all laugh a lot which is helpful for otherwise I would have great difficulty in spotting the jokes.