HOLD THE SUNSET

**

BBC1

THE last time John Cleese headlined a new television comedy the stars of Derry Girls, Channel 4’s sitcom smash, were not even born.

While the Fawlty Towers star has appeared in films and shows since 1975, he has never again been as prominent on TV as when he terrorised Manuel and took Torquay off the map as a tourist destination.

You might think, then, that TV would welcome the old boy back with something better than a comedy that plays like Terry and June on valium.

Set in an unnamed place which looks a lot like Surrey, Alison Steadman plays Edith, a widow, with Cleese as Phil, her boyfriend. With her children long gone, Edith decides Phil’s idea of moving to the sun is a winner. But no sooner have they visualised themselves on a balcony drinking Pinot Grigio than the doorbell rings. Standing there is Edith’s 50-year-old son, Roger (Jason Watkins). Having left his wife and kids, Roger now wants to be Edith’s lodger.

In comedy, if not always in life, there should be plenty of laughs to be mined from getting older. Steadman, star of the wonderful Boomers, knows this better than most. But on the evidence of this first episode, the nation’s A&E departments are not going to be troubled by an epidemic of aching ribs any time soon.

Between the sitcom cliches, including jaunty music and folk forever bursting through the back door, characters did things they only ever do in TV comedies, such as repeating themselves. “I’ve left her,” says Roger. “Left her?” bats back Edith. Yes, dear, he's left her.

At least this to and fro filled the yawning chasms between Cleese delivering another sarcastic line in supposedly withering fashion. In Fawlty Towers, Basil could strip paint with his mockery. Phil, in contrast, is more Susan Boyle than Frankie.

It is harsh to judge a comedy on the first episode, but in the multi-channel age one chance is all a newcomer often gets. Maybe things will improve when Scotland’s James Cosmo turns up later in the series. If not, the sun will set fast on this Cleese comeback.