Victor Lewis-Smith

Absolutely Fabulous (BBC2) has not merely turned to drink, but is fuelled by it. Everyone and everything is constantly tight - characters, script, acting, directing - and it works magnificently. The original premise is brilliant and shows no signs of flagging, the relationships between the protagonists are constantly developing and everybody shines, even June without Terry.

Bottom is an unfortunate name for a programme, inviting all manner of scatological put-downs from jaded TV critics; a more appropriate title might be Living Off Past Glories as Rik Mayall and partner rehash one more time the same limited repertoire of puerile, violent and nonsensical gestures that worked so brilliantly a decade ago in The Young Ones.

From a man with charisma to a man with charisn'tma, Rory McGrath who, on the evidence of the first edition of A Word In Your Era (BBC2, Sunday), has the rare ability to de-oxygenate a studio within moments of entering it. [...] Heavily scripted ad-libs plummet to the floor like turkeys, while a heavily dubbed studio audience launches itself unconvincingly into yet another pre-cued paroxysm. John Wells as Queen Victoria did his best, but getting this hopeless format to work would be like trying to kickstart a Jumbo Jet.

Set of Six (Channel 4) is billed as entertainment, but is clearly a human tragedy. [...] One wonders that anyone at Channel 4 ever allowed it to get on air. [p=1596]Rivron/p] is a likeable and highly original comedian, but he desperately needs to find somebody with the production sense to harness his talent. As it is, Set of Six is Doctor in the House on Valium.

The dizzy heights were attained by Edna Everage in the first of her series of Dame Enda's Neighbourhood Watch (LWT), "the Dame show which is a Game show". Masterfully deconstructing elements of the most grotesque of LWT's outpourings - Surprise, Surprise, Through the Keyhole, Game for a Laugh, Blind Date - she has rebuilt a hilarious parody of a game show that works in its own right yet subverts the genre at the same time.

And what about the jokes of Victor Lewis-Smith on Radio 1 (Saturdays, repeated Fridays). He is undoubtedly a funny fellow, full of breakneck wisecracks and all sorts of voices. But some of his jokes appear to be made at the expense of ordinary people. Who, for instance, was the receptionist asked to find, of all people, Haile Selassie? And how funny is it that some of us don't recognise the old emperor's name?