The Mrs. Merton Show

This is a spoof chat show with Caroline Ahearne playing OAP Mrs Merton . The concept is that Mrs Merton will invite celebrities who are in on the joke onto the show and ask them cheeky questions :

To lorraine Kelly : " What plans do you have for the menopause ? "

To Debbie McGee : " What attracted you to the millonaire Paul Daniels "

I've no idea if anyone phoned up to complain about Mrs Merton asking these type of personal questions ( Spoof chat show KNOWING ME KNOWING YOU did receive a barrage of complaints about the presenter Alan Partridge ! ) but one edition did feature a record number of complaints about one of its guests Bernard Manning

For those who don't know Bernard Manning is an old hat working mans club comedian . The reason he's rarely seen is because

a ) He wasn't all that funny to start with

b ) His jokes usually involve outrageous racist comments

So maybe he wasn't the greatest guest to have on in the first place , I mean it's not like he was going to go down well on a light hearted spoof chat show . He was seated next to the previous guest Richard Wilson and they both got into a heated argument with Manning making comments about Asians during the war and stating that because some people might have been born in England this in no way makes them English

" So Bernard " Asked Mrs Merton " Apart from Aldoph Hitler who else do you admire ? "

Cue some more comments about the war from Manning and meltdown at the BBC complaints department

This is a spoof comedy chat show that is not meant to be taken seriously, this should be blatantly obvious to anyone with even a modicum of a common sense.

But reading comments it never ceases to surprise me, the number of people who take it seriously and get offended on behalf of the guests.

Mrs Merton is obviously a made up 'cartoon' character played to the hilt by Caroline Aherne, and the entire programme is set up to support the shows 'Joke' so why do people take her and the whole premise seriously?

Personally I can't help feeling that the moaners know this well enough, and just love to whinge at any available opportunity.

The Mrs Merton character is merely engaging in light hearted banter with the shows guests, who will know what they are in for before they set foot into the set.

The shows audience are selected as an inherent part of the central 'Joke', working together with the shows Host Mrs Merton to complete the ensemble,

At least in part, this programme seems to have been devised in order for Caroline Aherne to make scornful or sarcastic remarks to celebrities whom she dislikes, with Aherne in the guise of an old woman to supposedly take the sting out of her comments.

Such a concept barely merits a single programme, let alone a series, hence it's unclear why the BBC let it run for so long, although it's hardly the first time the Corporation has given the go-ahead to a series of dubious quality. With regard to one of the guests on the show, and as has been documented elsewhere, Aherne asked Debbie McGee what attracted her to her millionaire husband Paul Daniels.

It would have been interesting to see how Aherne reacted if McGee had turned the tables on her by asking Aherne what attracted her to her former husband, the wealthy rock star Peter Hook. I suspect Aherne would've been none too pleased. All in all, a rather unpleasant little programme.