French And Saunders

That's all folks!

As they finally call it a day, French & Saunders reflect on their highs and lows of 30 years at the top.

The French & Saunders effort was as uninspiring and unfunny as that which preceded it. There is a classic difference between thinking that you're funny and actually being funny. It is plainly clear on which side of that particular dichotomy Jennifer and Dawn lie.

It's always hard to lampoon the excesses of a feature film when you've only got a TV budget to work with but, if you embark on a pastiche of the entire oeuvre of Federico Fellini, you've got to be extremely brave and exceptionally talented. Fortunately, both adjectives apply to French and Saunders (BBC1) who, in their present series, have consistently been firing on eight cylinders (I don't know what's fuelling them but, if it's legal, I'll have some).

What sets French And Saunders apart from the rest is their quirky and original choice of targets and unscrupulous attention to detail. Any idiot can attempt pastiche, but few would think of spoofing The House of Eliott, and even fewer could produce such an acutely observed parody as The House of Idiot, in which the problems of filming period drama on a limited budget were cruelly, but hilariously, exposed.