If anything, the moral quagmire that threatens to engulf wee Malcolm Biggar (aged nine and three quarters) is even closer to home – and today's hectic headlines – than it was five years ago.

So while we guffaw at the savage humour that delivers our gormless, hapless hero into the clutches of predatory, pervy immigrants – landlord Jerko Dreich and his mad, conniving old mother – or chortle at the venomous outpourings of Malcolm's hostile, neglectful parents, on reflection it's hard to shrug off the twisted scenarios devised by Jamie Harrison and Candice Edmunds as bizarrely far-fetched, or fantastical. The only improbable twist here is the crude oil gushing out of the Biggars' cludgie.