Why I reach for Aardman in dark times

Full of visual wit and narrative ingenuity, the tactile warmth and joie de vivre of these Aardman animations is soul-invigorating.

Summer Wine stars Compo and Clegg buried side-by-side

Actors Peter Sallis and Bill Owen became best friends during the 26 years they spent filming the sitcom together before Compo star Bill passed away in 1999. The two close friends now lie next to each other in St John's Church graveyard in the iconic Yorkshire Dales town of Holmfirth where they filmed the sitcom.

Peter Sallis had a secret and surprising sex life

Peter, whose death at 96 was announced on Monday, had a murky past that was a far cry from his showbiz alter egos -- he was a serial adulterer who could not resist the lure of the opposite sex. He was so prolific as a love cheat that his long-suffering wife Elaine threw him out sixteen times because of his affairs.

Wallace and Gromit may retire

Nick Park said he was unsure whether to continue the much-loved British comedy without actor Peter Sallis, who has voiced Wallace since 1990 when he accepted the voiceover job for £25, yet is growing increasingly frail at 93. The voice of the veteran, who starred in Last of the Summer Wine, is inextricably linked with Wensleydale-loving Wallace, - but Sallis is said to be in poor health.

The holy trinity - Foggy, Compo and Nora - have long departed, sadly, but original cast member Peter Sallis remains to provide continuity down the full length of Last Of The Summer Wine's 37 years. Unsurprisingly for a show whose whole purpose was to illustrate the equanimity it might be possible to have with the later stages of a quiet life, tonight's very final episode is gentle stuff. As the gang assemble for a wedding, Howard is left in the cold by Pearl, who may not even let him have his best suit. You may want to be in that number as the last bathtub, so to speak, is precariously rolled down the hill.

Once more the BBC salutes itself. Honestly, if they had to pay for the airtime to promote themselves, as they do constantly, the bill would be enormous. Here's ubiquitous Ian McMillan with a tribute to the longest-running sitcom in TV history as it reaches its final episode. Who'd have thought a comedy about three old men in rural Yorkshire could last so long, win so many hearts (if not mine) and make its corner of the Dales a tourist destination? Perhaps not even writer Roy Clarke and producer/director Alan JW Bell although their casting of the three originals, especially that of wonderful Peter Sallis and the late Bill Owen, was a masterstroke.

Swansong line for 'Last Of The Summer Wine' revealed

Long-running TV hit Last Of The Summer Wine will bow out with a line from the show's longest serving star Peter Sallis, it was revealed today.

When I was a child, wintry Sunday evenings meant watching Last of the Summer Wine while eating my supper, snuggled up to the radiator. It wasn't so much the thrill-a-minute antics that held me in thrall as the gentle rhythms of Peter Sallis's voice, later employed to such wonderful effect by Aardman. "More cheese, Gromit?" Certainly, but if you don't mind, I'll stick to the Stinking Bishop rather than the terrible stench wafting over from Big Top.

One can only imagine that the BBC commissioners are hoping to recreate the feeling of warmth engendered by Cleggy, Compo and Foggy with this throwback of a comedy, and the cheese gauge is certainly set on full fat - but the gags are never more than inanely mild.

To judge by her hotpants and hunting jacket, Amanda Holden must be the ringmistress of a circus whose acts we never see but which sounds, from behind the scenes, where the action takes place, frankly, rubbish, despite an all-star cast. The Thompson twins, Sophie (of EastEnders, and, erm, sister of Emma fame) and John (Cold Feet and Coronation Street, though admittedly a Thomson without the "p") are married circus clowns - Helen and Geoff - who, we are constantly told by Erasmus (Tony Robinson, in an odd-job role I could never quite put my finger on), would bring more joy to the assembled crowds by leaving the ring rather than finishing their act. Ruth "Hi-De-Hi!" Madoc finally drains any goodwill her campers might still hold for her as a demanding grande dame who can't keep her dancing dogs on a leash; and Bruce Mackinnon harks back to the benign world of Alf Garnett as the idiotic acrobat Boyco, from Eastern Europe. (Thank you for the geographic tip, BBC press release.) Bruce who? Oh, come now, Bruce Mackinnon... you know, that one from The Office and The Catherine Tate Show. Still no? Me neither.

Sorry, did I say benign world? I meant disturbingly racist world. Eastern European, is he? He'll probably have a funny accent. Oh, he does. And he's casually homophobic in a nonsensical way? ("That homosexual pop group ... Coldplay.") Of course he is. But that's OK. Because he's Eastern European. Any particular country? Apparently not. But then, as stupid and offensive as Boyco's character is, it's no worse than the rest of this trite bunch. Did you not know that everyone who works in a circus is dim?

One could dwell on the curiosity of Holden's Botoxed face not allowing her a full range of gurning (or, indeed, any expression at all); on a paucity of imagination (one of Madoc's dogs is called Fido. Fido, for goodness' sake); on the offensive and pathetic punchlines (Geoff: "When we come in, you're supposed to play Looney Tunes, not ..." Erasmus: "... Hitler's speech to the 1935 Nuremberg Rally." Do we really need the date as detail - in case we thought it was a different rally? Is that speech even comedy fodder?); on the repeated attempts to get a laugh from a story straight out of a Victorian music hall about sticking ferrets down trousers ("Looks like they had a ball." Ho ho!). But to go on like that would be cruel.