The Royal Bodyguard

David Jason is a hugely talented comic actor. Why, then, are the BBC demeaning him by giving him such a catastrophically idiotic, derivative and mirth-free script as "The Royal Bodyguard"? And who on earth gave this pathetic dross the go-ahead? This is real car-crash television: you can see the 'jokes' coming light years away. Throughout a conversation with a pianist at a grand piano, we all know David Jason's character will somehow mistakenly knock the piano cover closed. The lead-up to this century-old comedy non-starter is excruciating, though when it finally happens, it's still amazing just how limp the payoff is.

Other 'highlights': he tries to eat a lobster but doesn't know how! He tries to attack a suit of armour!! He falls into some water!!! Ahahahaha haha hahahahaha!!!!! I could understand better if this mess was a one-off special for Boxing Day, when people are generally too drunk to get up and turn the telly off - but there's a whole series of "The Royal Bodyguard" on its way.... good grief! In conclusion: unbelievably pathetic, and a hugely embarrassing failure. If a 6-year-old had written this script for a school project, it would be returned with a red line through it. An insult to the abilities of David Jason and an insult to the viewer.

Guy Hubble saves the Queen from a runaway carriage, a faux Pas of his own making, promoted to Royal Bodyguard, he's less than competent.

When this first aired, I switched it off after ten minutes or so, having a weekend in bed unwell, I figured it was time to give it another try, and form a balanced opinion.

I can spot a comedy from Bussell and Sbresni a mile off, sometimes they nail it, sometimes they get it horribly wrong, this sadly is the latter.

I watched every episode, and must confess my laughter equipment had less than half a workout, painfully unfunny jokes, some wooden acting, and poor Sir David Jason looking like he was set adrift in the middle of the Pacific Ocean in just a rowing boat.

Positives, Geoffrey Whitehead, he's the one shining light, when he's given half decent lines, he delivers with his usual brand of caustic, sarcastic wit. I have to admit to rather enjoying the fifth episode, where Guy goes undercover at Number ten, totally over the top and silly, but it broke the mould of every other formulaic episode, and Jason seemed to have fun as Sandra.

It's unsurprising that it was axed after just a single series, it really didn't work, I am surprised it made it to BBC 1.

4/10.

A weak script with unlikeable supporting characters spoiled what could have been a great idea. As it is, The Royal Bodyguard is funny as a gentle comedy. It is not something David Jason will be remembered for, despite trying hard. Some people have said it would have been saved by a younger actor, but to me, this looks like missing the point. The premise is that Guy Hubble, a forgotten member of the security forces is given the job as a car park attendant so that he can carry on working out of harms way, but through being in the wrong place at the right time he impresses HM The Queen so much that she insists he be promoted way above his level of competence. It's a one joke film, of course. The only way the premise can be stretched is that everyone else is incompetent too. We have incompetent senior civil servants, incompetent security guards, even incompetent terrorists. It could be argued that the Queen herself is incompetent to be taken in, to the extent of insisting on Hubble being kept in his job. That is the weakness of the concept. An incompetent security officer in a highly efficient security department facing well organised, highly disciplined terrorists could have been far more suspenseful and therefore far funnier when the comedy relieved the tension. Instead we get situations where everyone falls over their own and each others' feet and Hubble wins by being the last man standing. This is not intelligent comedy at all.

Comparisons have been made with Norman Wisdom. But Norman Wisdom comedies had sympathetic characters. The foils for Wisdom's antics were always the mighty brought down. In The Royal Bodyguard, we don't care about any of the other characters, and the mighty are brought down by their own incompetence as much as anything.

There is one big mistake in Hubble's character. He blames everyone else. This is a believable flaw, but it alienates him from us. Hubble does too much of it. It is not well written because he is always childishly shouting, "That was your fault!" it is one thing to let someone take the blame, but to deliberately blame innocent passers by is not the way to endear audiences.

I have given this a fairly generous score of five out of ten. This is entirely for David Jason. He brings pathos to what would be - in real life - a tragedy. This is a story about someone who is overconfident and in over his head; an old man who is too proud to retire and take a less active role and who pathetically attempts to look younger by wearing an obvious wig. People like that really exist and, in these days, there are probably more of them than ever. With better writing, this could have rocked. With poor writing it crumbles.

David Jason returns to BBC sitcom land where he has had great success in the past.

He plays Captain Guy Hubble; an ex-guardsman who becomes the Head of Security at the Buckingham Palace car park.

He then gets promoted as the Royal Bodyguard after somehow saving the Queen's life at the State Opening of Parliament.

Geoffrey Whitehead is Colonel Dennis Whittington; Hubble's hapless boss. He knows that Hubble is useless but is unable to fire him because Hubble somehow manages to please the Queen.

You can immediately guess that Jason plays a cross between Johnny English and Inspector Clouseau with Whittington essentially being Inspector Dreyfus.

At 71 years of age, Jason is rather too old to play such a role and looks it especially as is makes demands on him physically.

It also did not help that the sitcom is so lame, predictable and lacks an ounce of originality. You know where they got their inspiration from and Jason is miscast.

I sat through two episodes of this as I though maybe I was being unfair by loathing it after just ten minutes, but I wasn't. And I also think I am being generous giving it one star as this is beyond awful it has got to be the worst thing I have ever seen passed off as comedy in all my 50 plus years. It's dreadfully trite, screamingly unfunny and so badly written it's embarrassing. How on earth David Jason was persuaded to put his name and prodigious comedy acting talent to this heap of nonsense is beyond me. If anyone from the BBC is reading this, get it off and don't make any more please. And if you are planning to watch it for the first time, don't bother, visit your dentist or clean the drains instead, it'll be more fun.