A Comedy On This Day: Hello Cheeky - Mark II (15 March 1976)

 In his exhaustive Goodies book, Andrew Pixley describes this programme as a "breakneck cavalcade of fun", the generosity of which made me laugh rather more than anything in this edition. As it stands it’s a textbook illustration of how not to adapt something from radio to television, where it's CSO backdrops and minimal costume aesthetic make it look threadbare and ramshackle. Perhaps one way that it might have worked would have been to make it less visual and concentrate on the artificiality of the format, by showing the trio quick-changing into their many wigs and hats and including the studio audience in the picture, giving the viewer a more inclusive sense of performance and involvement in the process.

 Whenever he appears as a comedy performer (as opposed to a raconteur) Barry Cryer has always struck me as being far too eager to laugh at his own jokes.