A Chief Inspector Calls

OK, so we're not talking biting satire or kitchen-sink comedy - more food, in fact, ends up in the wastebin than on the table in Mrs Lumsden's kitchen. As farce goes, it's cheerful enough.

Timothy visits the local prison with his mobile library, befriends Wuzza, a prisoner, played cheerfully by Doug Fisher, who escapes, ends up in his garage and tells Timothy he only has three weeks to live. Sadly, Fisher himself died early aged 59.

Of course it's a ruse to get his own back on his allegedly unfaithful girlfriend, Cilla, played with cheeky gum-chewing panache by Denise Gyngell, a mud-wrestler - something that seems somewhat passé towards the second quarter of the twenty-first century.

Cocktails with the Chief Inspector and his wife, Timothy's sister, Muriel, turning up with husband Kevin on their way to a tarts and vicars party and plenty of shenanigans in the understairs cupboard keep it all going until Wuzza is returned to jail by Timothy in the mobile library.

This is not Fawlty Towers, nor Brian Rix - but as a fast moving farce it has its' moments - and it's fascinating to differentiate between Barbara Lott as Mrs Lumsden and the later Dame Patricia Routledge as Hyacinth Bucket - much the same, but very different. The former merely seeking to impress the neighbours, the latter climbing so high up the social ladder, she can't differentiate between pseudo-class status and pretentiousness.

Ronnie Corbett is always charming as the hen-pecked, Mothers boy son. Like much good comedy, in an enclosed environment, the characters cannot escape one another and just have to accept their fate.

I'm sorry, I hope I wasn't being pretentious?

The sixth series opens with a slightly bizarre premise. Timothy takes his mobile library to prison. To think that a prison would not have its own library.

Timothy has a good rapport with convict Wuzzo. He has been borrowing several books from the mobile library.

Later on Timothy discovers that Wuzzo has sneaked into his mobile library and escaped from prison. He then asks a favour from Timothy. Wuzzo wants Timothy to bring his girlfriend Cilla to meet him.

Cilla is a mud wrestler and Timothy goes to a club to look for her. When she arrives at the house. Timothy needs to keep both Cilla and Wuzzo away from his brother as she throws a dinner party.

By the end it all ends up as a weak and predictable farce.