If you like your comedy very silly and rude then make sure you give this a try. It's a sword-and-sorcery spoof starring ex-EastEnder Sean Maguire as Krod, the vain leader of a completely useless band of rebels. There's his girlfriend who uses sex as a weapon, a sorcerer who can't do magic and a very clumsy servant. But the star of the show is Matt Lucas as Krod's enemy, the evil Dongalor.

I don't know what to make of Krod Mandoon - but it doesn't matter, because Sean Maguire looks absolutely amazing. I haven't been keeping a close eye on his career lately and I realise now that this was a mistake.

After EastEnders he went off to become a pop star and mope about in Dangerfield before becoming massive - in every sense - enjoying a successful TV career in the States and bulking up for movie spoof Meet The Spartans. All I can say is - wow! - in a professional sense, of course.

Krod Mandoon - also starring Matt Lucas as evil Chancellor Dongalor - is a medieval spoof. A bit Robin Hood, a bit Blackadder, a bit Shrek, a bit Monty Python And The Holy Grail - although sadly with much, much weaker jokes. This shouldn't come as much of a surprise as it was written by Peter Knight, whose CV includes something called Big Wolf On Campus. What is a surprise though is that the best thing about it is Maguire, who stars as the extremely buff, sword-carrying freedom fighter Krod Mandoon.

Just to underline the cheesiness of it all, he plays it with a flawless American accent, and his girlfriend, pagan warrior Aneka (India de Beaufort) will definitely get the guy vote too. You'll love it or hate it, but you'll be driven mad trying to work out who's under the pageboy bob of Chancellor Dongalor's henchman. Take a bow Holby City's snide (and bald) anaesthetist Keith Greene (Alex MacQueen).

Fans of Lord of the Rings who watch this quirky new comedy will be as disappointed as the time they booked a trip to the Orkneys and failed to spot a single orc, because this firmly tugs at the breeches of fantasy stories. And it's hard to see how it could do anything else with Matt Lucas off Little Britain playing the evil Chancellor Dongalor and Sean 'Big in America' Maguire starring as hapless hero Krod. Daft sword-and-sauciness fun.

Sean Maguire Interview

Sean Maguire chats about breaking the States, working with Matt Lucas and smacking himself with a flaming sword...

Sean Maguire, last seen in 300 spoof Meet The Spartans, rolls out his splendid torso again for this good-looking TV series parodying ancient times. Now we're in the realm of the Meconian Empire and he's a freedom fighter trying to vanquish evil Chancellor Dongalor (Matt Lucas) before he figures out how to work a baffling weapon of mass destruction called the Eye of Gulga Grymna. Maguire is on good form but the rotund, baby-faced Lucas steals the show; he's contrary, powerful, bloodthirsty, ridiculously attired - and clearly loving every minute of it.

New Statesman Review

I'm not sure it's a goer as a series. It has a great cast and the production values are high quality. It's well written, too. The way it combines fantasy and 21st-century dialogue can be funny. The trouble is that, once you have seen half an hour, you've seen it all.

Matt Lucas on fame, body image and relationships

Bald at 6, a father in prison... Matt Lucas's childhood could read as a misery memoir. Yet it wasn't quite like that. Here he talks frankly about family, fame, body image and relationships, and how, with comedy as his weapon, he's emerged a thoroughly grounded man who couldn't be more unlike the gallery of grotesques he's so famous for creating.

Matt Lucas interview

Ahead of his new BBC series Krod Mandoon and the Flaming Sword of Fire, the comic Matt Lucas talks hairy underpants and world domination.

Krod Mandoon is the least funny show ever

Krod Mandoon and the Flaming Sword of Fire is a bit like the circus clown. It's a painfully enormous, overwrought and too desperate exercise in nerd-fan-wankery, of the kind that usually happens in bad sprite comics.

Third Episode Verdict

Yes, you guessed it, it's parody time, with role-playing games, Dungeons and Dragons, et al, as the target of this mildly humorous, slightly obvious comedy, mainly involving silly names. Prepare to laugh - a little.