The Wright Way: Seven of its worst gags

We've picked out seven of the show's worst gags so that you don't have to endure the telly atrocity.

Ben Elton mauled by critics after Wright Way goes wrong

Critics accused Elton of producing precisely the kind of dated sitcom that the "alternative comedy" uprising he once spearheaded, with its zero tolerance for sexist attitudes, set out to destroy.

If he hadn't actually written this himself, you'd have assumed some sort of Ben Elton sitcom generator had done the job for him. A short-fused health-and-safety manager (David Haig) with a gay daughter, and her live-in girlfriend, tries to get to grips with modern life: whether wrestling with taps or buying a birthday gift for a female co-worker. As mirthless as it is dated (pratfalls, innuendo, jokes about PC-ness), it's comparable to Extras' When The Whistle Blows, with a regrettably similar catchphrase: "Do not get me started."

Ben Elton's first sitcom in over a decade feels old and new at the same time. The first joke is about how long women spend in the bathroom, and you groan inwardly. Then it turns out the man making the joke - our uptight antihero, played by David Haig - shares a house with his daughter and her girlfriend. "What is the point of being a lesbian if you continue to act like a normal woman?" he demands.

The tone is old-school. Haig, whose character, Gerald Wright, rants about everything, does exasperation well (and a lot). Oddly his character is the thing middle-aged curmudgeons hate most - a health and safety officer.

Maybe it's too easy to knock Ben Elton these days but God, this is diabolical. Making The Thin Blue Line and Blessed look like comic masterpieces by comparison, Elton's latest foray into sitcom stars David Haig (doing his level best against impossible odds) as Baselricky council's health-and-safety manager, Gerald Wright. Default mode: exasperation. Bugbears: women in bathrooms, poor dishwasher etiquette, faulty faucets. Catchphrase: 'don't get me started'. You know the type.

Fortunately, there's a clap-happy studio audience to disguise the absence of a single good joke - wordplay around 'erection' and 'knob' is about as creative as it gets. And, in case you think all that sounds hopelessly out of step with the modern world, the girlfriend of Gerald's lesbian daughter drops a couple of references to hashtags and 'YouTube moments'. Never have Blackadder and The Young Ones seemed so long ago. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

What happened to Ben Elton?

Who would believe this is the same comic whose stand-up routines sandblasted away the pebbledash of 1970s tit-gags and racism?

Ben Elton's The Wright Way - What went wrong?

It is easy to knock Ben Elton because of his involvement in We Will Rock You, but that does not explain quite how bad The Wright Way is.

I wonder if Ben Elton saw a Channel 4 Comedy Showcase pilot called Fun Police a couple of years ago about an ­overzealous health and safety department at a local council. I only ask because his new sitcom stars David Haig as overzealous health and safety officer Gerald Wright.

Gerald's gripes about modern life sound suspiciously like one of Ben Elton's old stand-up routines, only done in a comedy voice.

And almost everyone in this has a comedy voice, except for Beattie Edmondson, who has two. She plays Gerald's daughter's lesbian girlfriend - a modern flourish in a show as old-fashioned as one of Elton's spangly suits.

You can feel the heavy hand of ex-My Family director Dewi Humphreys all over this, while the laughter track suggests an ­audience rupturing their spleens over gags that are smirk-worthy at best. But Mina Anwar who plays Malika is rather good - perhaps because she's the only one speaking normally.

The sitcom that proves Ben Elton is no longer funny

How is it possible this dire new comedy was written by the same person behind Blackadder and The Young Ones?

Could The Wright Way be so bad it's good?

The new BBC1 comedy series has already come in for a lot of stick from critics - but could it actually turn out to be unintentionally hilarious? asks Tom Cole.