Who Wants to be the Disco Squid? Harry Hill's Clubnite.

Impressions of that dog on That's Life that used to say "sausages", an audience sprayed from a wine box, a disco squid, regular singalongs of the word 'Debenhams', a 'win what you weigh' feature in which entrants have to balance themselves with a washing machine on a seesaw, and a dance to the Chuckle Brothers theme tune to spell out the letters of Boko Haram.

Harry Hill's still as daft as ever and it's still a glorious thing. Not least at this time of division and uncertainty. Channel 4's recent six parter Harry Hill's Clubnite showed that Hill has lost none of his touch when it comes to the surreal, the ridiculous, and the absolutely hilarious. He still sings daft songs, does silly dances, and sports collars sharp enough to take your eye out. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

I've been a long time admirer of the man and was a particular fan of characters like the Channel 4 controller (who seems to be back in the absurd form of Harry's son, Gary, a keen swingball fan), Stouffer (also making a welcome reappareance), and 'regular viewer' Bunty Hovis who, alas, didn't make the cut this time. I also like Hill's delivery, the way he wrongfoots you with a joke, and the way his seemingly innocent jokes can be far more cutting than they first appear.

Quite literally in the case of a joke about his nan wanting one of those things all the kids have got. A fidget spinner? No, a knife! Other jokes are more innocent. Harry explains how he likes to spend hours in a Tesco Express and travel hundreds of miles to visit a Sainsbury's Local, has a cheeky rant about Boots selling sandwiches ("who buys food from a chemist?"), and relates a tale of taking his Nan to Dignitas instead of Disneyland because of a misunderstanding.


Each show begins with Harry singing a song (Katy Perry's 'I Kissed A Girl', Pixies 'Debaser', The Only Ones 'Another Girl, Another Planet', Britney Spears 'Womaniser', or Talking Heads 'Once In A Lifetime' and each commercial break is introduced by the Disco Squid dancing to a solid gold classic from the likes of Chic, Sister Sledge, KC & The Sunshine Band, Earth, Wind & Fire, The Trammps, Kelly Marie, Barry White, Sylvester, Ottawan, or even Diana Ross's I'm Coming Out.

Shows end with Harry's ex-wife Mandy (a large northern teddy bear in a floral print dress who appears to have popped in from a hen night in the Chicago Rock Cafe after one too many Lambrinis) who, along with a guest dressed as a hamster, Harry, the Disco Squid, and anyone else who's been on, leads a singalong of a karaoke classic like Material Girl, Cher's Believe, Waterloo, You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet, Can't Take My Eyes From You, or River Deep, Mountain High.

The whole thing is as glorious as it is ludicrous and each episode had me beaming and often in stitches. Even if the acts, the show is presented as if an old fashioned variety performance, ranged from the great to the good to the average to the rubbish to the WTF!

In that WTF category we have Mr Swallow, a Mancunian thesp who sings a Little Fall of Rain from Les Miserable while sliding around in fake blood. There's The Delightful Sausage who do karaoke Tom Jones and make jokes about Brexit and poppers while sharing one enormous skirt. There's Rachel Parris singing songs from The Great Showman (why?) and, most bonkers and incomprehensible of all, there's Lucy Pearman's who appears twice. First, dressed as a jellyfish, talking in a silly accent, and producing grapes. Then, towards the end of the series, dressed as an egg dancing to roosters crowing.

These acts were so unhinged it's almost impossible to say if they were good or bad but some acts, alas did disappoint. The double act Egg also got two turns but their daft sketches and equally dizzy dancing didn't do much for me. James Gill's tales of single life, Play Station, and cider weren't particularly inspiring or original. Jessica Fostekew's lessons on feminist flirting and use of the word 'hench' were equally unenlightening and, for me, Holly Byrne's very loud jokes about getting nectarine flesh down her decolletage weren't as hilarious as she seemed to think they were.

Most disappointing of all was Alfie Brown whose jokes about his kids and how many women he'd fucked before settling down to fatherhood was as dated as it was dull. His shirt (and, to be fair, his singing voice) were a vast improvement on his lumpen comedy.

Judi Love's tales of single life, period knickers, and Meghan Markle were funnier. As was Rosie Jones (in her dinosaur dungarees) joking that she was a societal outcast in three different ways. She's disabled, she's gay, and, in her words, she's a prick! Tim Renkow's jokes about breast feeding started off unpropitiously but soon morphed into a bizarre routine about accidentally pissing on a baby.

Drag act Anna Mann (Colin Hoult also got two chances to show off this character) gets a few laughs with anecdotes of a theatrical bent, being rude to the audience, and best of all having an ex-husband called Peter Runway. A name worthy of Toast of London! Suzi Ruffel's tales of lesbian dating and sharing pints of Baileys with her mum were decent enough and Zoe Coombs Marr mined similar, but edgier ground, with a broad Australian accent and jokes about lesbian fisting before going more high minded and deconstructing male observational stand up humour with an almost surgical precision.

I particularly liked her line "I will happily shut down a fun situation to correct someone's pronoun usage". More laughs came from Joe Jacobs performing topical grime tracks about Donald Trump, Syria, and, er, Ayrton Senna before pretending to improvise a rap about the nineties that contained references to watching Tim Henman play at Wimbledon and drinking Hooch!

It was certainly a trip down memory lane. While Phil Dunning playing with his hair, banging on about wanking, and taking his trousers off wasn't particularly funny, his mocked up Bernard Manning act ("Daddy, I saw two fairies in the garden", "Really, love, what were they doing", "Sucking each other's cocks") was way funnier than it should have been.

Others I liked included Paul F Taylor (jokes about sheep, foxes, recycling, and a lengthy routine on the origins of the knock knock joke), Eddie Kadi (loonies on the bus in Tottenham), Huge Davies (keyboard round the neck for a deconstruction of the shoddy lyrics of Heads, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes), and Mawaan Rizwan whose subject matter focused on ketamine, his homosexuality, but most of all mangoes.

But best of all, for me, were Mo Amar, Bridget Christie, Spencer James, and Andy who works at Harry's local kebab shop. Mo, short for Mohammed ("no relation"), kept it neat and tidy with a short but very good routine that took in anecdotes about a trip to Somalia and having a pet goat called Ahmed. Bridget Christie's performance was similar to the one I saw her give at the Leicester Square Theatre last year. An abridged version but juiced up with some good, new, and even ruder stuff about Boris Johnson.

Andy from the kebab shop managed to make great hay with his theories on Nike logos and the invention of positive football chants while looking simultaneously completely overwhelmed and completely underwhelmed to be there. Spencer James' routine was not far short of that of a clown with his pretend long arms, big ears, and weird noises. It wouldn't be something that'd normally appeal to me but when he launched into his hilarious "do you remember my mum" song it all kind of made perfect sense.

Or as much as anything in Harry Hill's word makes sense. Which is, of course, the joy of it all. Hill banters with the guests if they're good or bad. It doesn't always work but even when it doesn't, it doesn't last long and there's normally something else to get us smiling before long. The intentionally crap robot pissing and farting wasn't great, a random man vomiting wasn't as funny as when Stouffer puked up, the use of a Royal Mail sizer (with full audience participation) got a bit tired by the end, and Max Ewin's tips'n'clips was, for me, particularly crap and would be best dropped should the show be recommissioned.

But when it does it's brilliant. Other favourite moments for me included a joke about how Harry's grandad always wore a poppy to celebrate his heroin addiction, Harry dressing up as Adam Hills from The Last Leg (and Hills coming on dressed as Harry), a tale of only having one photograph of his nan to use at her funeral - and that being her on the log flume at Alton Towers, Morecambe & Wise's swastika dance, and Harry's memories from his youth. When he was told never to accept sweets from strangers but made the fatal error of not realising that savoury goods were unacceptable also.

He goes on to joke that, in the seventies, we didn't have cures for diseases. If you got a disease you just died. That was it. There may not have been times during Harry Hill's Clubnite that I could have died laughing but laughing was something I did a hell of a lot watching this series. Laughing and smiling. In the midst of the most depressing General Election of my life it was a much needed tonic.

Thanks to Adam for the heads up on this series and thanks, again, to Harry. It was good to be back in his loopy loop.