"It's goodnight from you."

Good god. I apologise in advance for this, but it's another TV rant. This time, concerning another recent programme but I'm on the side that wishes it was never aired. Me and my uncle, and I hope many, many other people- we agree on this.

The One Ronnie.

Just look at the talent drawn in, all solid in their own right, to distract us from the fact that it was just a recycled show.

Lionel Blair
Rob Brydon
Charlotte Church
Jon Culshaw
Harry Enfield
James Corden
Jocelyn Jee Esien
Miranda Hart
Robert Lindsay
Matt Lucas
Catherine Tate
David Walliams
Richard Wilson

If that isn't an act of "ooh, look at the shiny! But don't look behind the curtain!" then I don't know what is. No, really. I'm fairly sure that the amount of acts thrown at the show to see what stuck is the epitome of a distraction. If it isn't, someone please correct me or I'll go through life thinking that.

And look at who was drawn in to write the sketches, all based on "formulae" that The Two Ronnies already tried, to much funnier and much more memorable success (to the point where they have now, in many cases, become flogged and over-repeated- Four Candles anyone?). That is all that the show was- repeats of old sketches, with the puns pulled out and filled with updated versions. "Eggs box £3.60" just doesn't work in place of "plug, rubber, barfroom. 15 amp." The Barker magic was missing. Instead it was cobbled together from the pens of these people-

Matt Lucas
David Walliams
The Dawson Bros
Ben Elton
John Finnemore
Robert A Gray
Jason Hazeley and Joel Morris
Richard Law

Now I can vouch for at least some of these people, on past evidence, being able to pen a decent comedy script. But by gutting the old scripts they gave themselves a Ronnie Barker sized whole that even the sum of their creative talent put together couldn't have filled, let alone the actuality which was so much talent apparently working independently of the other parts.

Honestly, what were they thinking? It failed miserably. As a birthday present to Corbett it was certainly very nice, but The Two Ronnies without Barker, i.e. The One Ronnie, or as I think of it The Lesser Ronnie, it failed. I cannot see how it went out on TV. It failed to raise a single smirk from me, and I'm normally open to allsorts of comedy and will enjoy any old tat with a chuckle (I enjoyed Grandma's House, for example, which wasn't going for belly laughs, while The One Ronnie was).

Barker's greatest talent, to me, was his wordplay, and some of the best places his wordplay shone through were the sketches he did on his own like the heiroglyphs or the musical numbers. Either gutting songs and adding his own lyrics which he and Corbett would then sing, or just penning lyrics to well known pieces of music like Christmas carols or classical pieces such as the Entry of the Gladiators sketch, Barker always wove brilliant lines in. Singers you wouldn't expect to be sniping at each other mid song would do so to the tune, or a conversation would take place in time and tune with the music between Barker's and Corbett's characters.

Perhaps what was missing?

The closing musical number here, featuring Enfield, Lucas, Walliams, Corbett and Brydon in a Songs of Praise, Women's Institute style sniping match just failed to deliver on any level similar to what Barker achieved with even the worst of his numbers. And no, Barker wasn't right all the time, but his tat and worst bits weren't all lumped together in one episode.

Sadly, Corbett doesn't work on his own. Either in delivery, or writing (clearly, as the world and his wife helped with that), and it just flops. Why the BBC chose to advertise The One Ronnie with such gusto when Come Fly With Me, Walliams' and Lucas' new series, is infinitely better and so close to the mark that it cannot help being funny, I have no idea. I just know that Corbett shouldn't have been allowed past the planning stages with his unfunny "homage", i.e. rip-off, of the better part of the comedy duo's work.

The talent ratio? Akin to David and David, methinks...

And this is why, gentlemanly as he is, I wish at the start of the show an action hero, perhaps Arnie, perhaps Samuel L. Jackson, Clint, The Punisher, hell, even Deadpool, anyone capable of delivering a sphincter-tighteningly bad action movie line, had popped out from behind the scenery, put a bullet in Corbett's head and, deadpan as you like, said "It's goodnight from you." That at least would have been a surprise, and probably would have got a laugh from me.