Paul Whitehouse’s Sketch Show Years review: Bravo Paul, for daring to remind us of Benny Hill’s joyful slapstick, writes CHRISTOPHER STEVENS

Paul Whitehouse’s Sketch Show Years (Gold) 

Rating:

Only a comedy connoisseur would have the nerve. Paul Whitehouse, star of The Fast Show and now Gone Fishing, dared to say it — Benny Hill was brilliantly funny.

In the first episode of his Sketch Show Years, harking back to the 1970s, he paid tribute to beloved double acts: Morecambe and Wise, The Two Ronnies, and Peter Cook and Dudley Moore.

Acknowledged geniuses such as Les Dawson and the Python troupe were included too, though the selection was too predictable — the dead parrot, conductor Andrew Preview, fork handles and Bloody Greta Garbo all featured.

But the real fun started when Paul dared to reassess the comedians that political correctness cancelled. He took a nostalgic joy in reminding us of Dick Emery’s favourite characters — Honky-Tonks mincing in his silks and extravagant hats, and saucy Mandy dispatching every suitor with a shove: ‘Ooh, you are awful . . . but I like you!’

Most of all, he revelled in the raunchy slapstick of Alfred Hawthorne Hill, who started doing stand-up as a teenager in the 1930s, before adopting the name of his favourite American comedian, Jack Benny.

Benny Hill is almost never seen on television now. All we remember is the fast-forward chase scenes, Benny being pursued by girls in swimsuits to the soundtrack of Yakety Sax.

But he was a far more versatile performer and writer with an array of characters such as Mervyn Twit and Fred Scuttle, and a gift for silent comedy that made him the precursor to Mr Bean. Paul gave us a taste of this, but an hour-long episode could have given him much more space to remind us what we’ve been missing.

Benny’s success was global, partly because it needed no translation: ‘I can get my face slapped in six languages,’ he said.

Though the post-punk boom in alternative comedy stalled his career in the UK during the 1980s, he remained phenomenally successful abroad.

Sales of his show in the U.S. netted him $5 million a year, about £15m today. Stations aired his repeats twice daily. 

Prisoners at San Jose penitentiary threatened to riot unless they were allowed to watch him.

During the Cold War, Russians picked up his programme by turning their TV aerials towards Finland, until Premier Mikhail Gorbachev ruled that Benny could be broadcast in the Soviet Union — one of the Kremlin’s most popular decisions ever.

Despite his success, money meant nothing to him. When he went shopping, he took a carrier bag of banknotes. He turned down lucrative offers to perform in Vegas, and lived in a modest flat with a rented television.

Only a comedy connoisseur would have the nerve. Paul Whitehouse (pictured), star of The Fast Show and now Gone Fishing, dared to say it — Benny Hill was brilliantly funny

Explaining why he had no wife or partner, he said: ‘I have a mental age of about 17 — far too young for marriage.’ Every Christmas, he returned to his late parents’ semi-detached house in Southampton, where he put out buckets to catch rain pouring through the roof. 

Eccentric and joyfully entertaining, Benny Hill deserves to be rediscovered. Paul’s salute was a good start.