Off Their Rockers: older people and even older jokes

Hidden-camera shows are just silly, and Off Their Rockers is no exception, despite promising us a fresh perspective on ageing.

God forbid I am ever diagnosed as terminally ill, but if it happens I shall be buying the complete series of Off Their Rockers and watching it on an endless loop. It wouldn't actually make my life last any longer, but it would certainly feel like it.

Off Their Rockers is a hidden-camera show featuring elderly pranksters preying upon young targets. It is a novelty that wears off pretty quickly, and the little interest I had in the show disappeared entirely after 12 minutes exactly. I know because I made a point of looking at the time.

But then I hate hidden-camera shows. In fairness, several of the set-ups were inventive - the out-of-control mobility scooter and helium balloons taking flight pushed proceedings into the realm of the mildly amusing - and the performances of the cast were excellent.

However, the nature of the comedy is predictable and repetitive, and with the trailer for the second episode promising to rehash several scenarios from the first, it is fair to assume things won't be getting any better.

ITV rolled out something called Off Their Rockers, in which ageing actors "spoofed" young members of the public. The joke was that it's "funny" to see an "old" person saying a sex word or farting.

Every gag was about fungus, dog poo, haemorrhoids or sex. The message was that that's all people over 70 do, fart and have fungus and step in dog poo, and widdle, and die, and that it would be funny to watch young people being shocked at them doing it. The young "spoofed" came out of it very well: tolerant and kind and not one of them cruel.

The cruelty was all self-inflicted, on actors and on the whole woeful production. At one stage, an oldish biddy acted even older on a bus, croaking to a bemused teen: "Do you think I'm too old at 78 to stand up?" My parents are about that age, and they stand up straight for at least eight whole hours a day every day. (No need, it's just their thing. Sometimes just in the middle of the street, though it's best when they can get into shop windows.)

If this was commissioned by anything older than a slavering pre-teen nincompoop, they should be horsewhipped. Nasty, weak, jaw-droppingly patronising and the least funny thing to have hit our screens since Keith Lemon.

Off Their Rockers review

Hidden camera pranks show Off Their Rockers had me almost rocking with laughter.