I just don't buy this Brand

The Weekender

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I know you lot think that TV criticism is about as much use as describing a road accident to a group of eye-witnesses, and you're right, but there are times when reviewing a programme can be as dangerous as being involved in a car smash.

Jack Dee once famously threatened to put me in a car crusher after I'd failed to write 800 words of closely-argued adulation about his show (if only I could have chosen the model, I could have appeared in my own obituary as a Citroen presse) and similar violence nearly broke out after Bobby Davro attempted to imitate Chris Eubank, and I suggested he should stick to Michael Watson, who he could do without trying.

As for the royal personage who wrote to tell me "you have obviously spent so much time with your head wedged between your buttocks that your vision has been obscured by the reflection of your own putrid entrails," patriotism (and an unconvincing signature in red crayon) prevents me from revealing their identity, and anyway, all I'd said was that she had all the star quality of a dead bat. I suppose she would have preferred me to liken her to a live bat, because they are far more exciting, being essentially gerbils with their own hang-gliders attached.

You would think that Jo Brand could take criticism squarely on the chins, but the woman who can crush cars simply by sitting on them once berated me fulsomely in print, and declared that I should be made to suffer the most appalling pain. Well, last night her wish came true, because I was professionally obliged to sit through an entire edition of

Nobody Likes A Smartass (BBC2), and long before the end I was squirming as miserably as a salted slug. Why she had been chosen to host this early-evening quiz must remain a mystery, because she has never claimed to possess an outstanding intellect, and her visual appearance (think of the recent Uday Hussein pics, except with reverse liposuction, is certainly not to everyone's taste. Yet one has to admit that she has perfected one skill, namely the ability to persuade commissioning editors to keep putting her on TV, even though she clearly has more talent in her little finger than in the rest of her body put together.

There was a period when agitprop performers like Brand would have refused to share a stage with a former Tory MP, but times have changed, and anyway, she was only ever a middle-class girlie pretending to be one of the lads. So it was that she happily introduced us to Gyles Brandreth, who starred for years in the low pantomime that is the House of Commons, until the good burghers of Chester wisely slung him out in 1997, since when he has continued his long slide down the greasy pole of politics.

Accompanying him were a trio of contestants who were walking the fine line between celebrity and nonentity, including one fey chap whose first words were "I have a girlfriend," thus proving beyond all doubt that he couldn't possibly be homosexual. And as the quintet indulged in some uneasy scripted banter before the quiz got under way, I was reminded of the words of Red Adair (the firefighting tap dancer with the hare lip) who once said: "If you don't strike oil in the first two minutes, stop boring."

Just as a camel is a horse designed by a committee, so this lumpy and misshapen format had clearly been assembled by a team from assorted bits of other, better quiz shows. The lighting and robotic cameras were derived from Have I Got News For You, the sadistic questioning and humiliating walk-out for failed contestants from The Weakest Link, while the Trivial Pursuit general knowledge questions and against-the-clock finale have been the common currency of TV quizzes for half a century.

The feeble alliterative links ("humble a handpicked crop of clever dicks") and immoderate use of dubbed compressed laughter couldn't disguise the abject failure to generate tension in the studio, and instead of reaching a climax, the show merely petered out. And as for the ritual booing that the Cambridge audience were encouraged to emit every time "the other place" was mentioned, the proceedings were further proof of the Lewis-Smith rule, which states that anybody who has been to Oxford will mention it within the first six minutes and 38 seconds. It works every time.

From Peter Ustinov to Stephen Fry, the British public do like smartasses, but only if they also possess an ability to entertain, and don't expect to win our applause by simply reciting a few factoids gleaned from the backs of crisp packets. Recognising the name of Slade's first chart hit or remembering the characters in Star Wars belongs in the realm of pub quizzes, not on television, and the sole purpose of this show's existence is not to enthral an audience, but to keep the staff of RDF in gainful employment.

I shan't be watching it again, but if you feel in need of a powerful emetic, then why not tune in tonight, and see not just Brand, but Michael Winner too? With those two on the screen, and a half-pint of brown ale shandy with a Tixylix top pouring down your throat, I guarantee that you'll soon be having the old thunder-chunder rainbow parfait, while calling for Ralph on the big white telephone.

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