Review - Al Murray The Pub landlord's Compete for the meat

Flogging the format...to death.

Al Murray has, for years, being doing exactly what it says on the tin, with the added recent development that the shows are now filmed, meaning he can turn a live show into a handy pitch to Channel Five executives, saving valuable time for coke and hookers or wherever else it is that television executives do when not listening to pitches from comedians.

This was essentially the Christmas version of 'Compete for the meat'. If you are actually competing, as we were last year, then there is the fun of a quiz and the edgy titillation of possibly being humiliated by Al. If you are an audience member, the show is not so immediate, you are essentially just watching a live version of a tee vee quiz show based on a pub quiz.

But they do work hard to make it fun. Al has raised his game from victimising individuals to victimising whole tables at once, and there are sing-alongside for the whole audience. If you go along to this with a sort of ironic detachment, you'll be miserable. If you grab hold of a 'thick and slow' foam finger and join in the abuse, rendering the whole experience not unlike some beery version of 'Lord of the flies' then you'll enjoy it.

Was it fresh? No. Was it slick? Very. Was it funny? Yes. Al did enough, in particular with his attempted wooing of one young helpless woman, to make an established format one has seen before seem fresh. What one was watching was essentially a comedians greatest hits, and, as anyone who has ever been to a gig and observed the audience reaction when a band announces that they are now going to play some of their new material will tell you, that's no bad thing.