I Don't Want To See A Ghost, I'd Rather Have A Piece Of:Toast Of London S3.

 "Are those my pickled onions?" - Ray Purchase

Scott Chestnut, Oona Length, Rob Continental, Derek Bildings, Tony Excalibur, Larry Muggins, Pooky Hook, Jenny Spasm, Cliff Bonanza, Michael Prance, Gavisgon Kerchief! With a list of characters like that it can only be Arthur Mathews and Matt Berry's Toast Of London and indeed it is.

I've finally caught up with the third season (it aired on Channel 4 back in November and December of 2015 but it's up on the iPlayer now - if you're quick) and I'm glad I did. It is, of course, as ridiculous as ever. Directed by Michael Cumming, we follow the titular Steven Toast (Berry) on a series of ludicrous adventures and giggle at him as he mispronounces fairly everyday words and phrases.

My favourites in this series being "future", "charisma", "eggnog", "Al Jazeera", and, best of all, "toilet facilities". Often recounted to either his housemate Ed (Robert Bathurst) in their shared kitchen or to his agent Jane Plough (Doon Mackichan) in her office as he talks about the ridiculous scenarios he finds himself in and slags off his nemesis Ray Bloody Purchase (Harry Peacock).

We see a young, stoned, Toast accidentally wander on to the set of 2001:A Space Odyssey and the elder man nearly brings down the US government (and destroys "the entire world") while appearing on Lorraine drunk. Toast auditions for the part of Dickie Davies (and doesn't get the role despite looking exactly like him), performs a cringe inducing 'sand dance' with Purchase, accidentally tells a waiter he wants to fuck his mother, and becomes extremely frustrated when he is teased by his peers for never performing at the Globe.

His love life remains as complicated as ever. He's still banging Mrs Purchase (Tracy-Ann Oberman), who's now got a job operating drones for the US military, but that doesn't stop him dating either "doctor of drumming", Varrity Map (Sinead Matthews) or Pussy Riot t-shirted weather girl Clancy Moped (Sophie Colquhoun). Both as pretty, and as into Toast as he is into himself, as they are monomaniacal about their obsessions.

Both his career and his romantic life are, as ever, stymied by his work colleagues Clem Fandango (Shazad Latif) and Danny Bear (Tim Downie). Clem and Danny are dafter than even before in this series, Coked and pilled up, their hipster threads are sillier than ever:- TVAM t-shirts, t-shirts with holes in expressly for nipple display, playing cards tucked into ostentatious hats, and Adam Ant style face stripes).

It sets the tone for a world in which nobody ever acts remotely sane. Mrs Purchase draws a portrait of Toast on his big toe, Ed dates a seemingly mute older lady called Penvelope and collects vintage copies of Women's Realm, Ray Purchase's albino twin Bill takes a shit in Wendy Craig's muesli and shoves Toast's pipe up his bum, and Bob Monkhouse (played by Simon Cartwright) is still alive, constantly quipping, and hosting the Royal Variety Performance.

Oh - and he's married to a zombie. Although, for me, the songs still feel a bit unnecessary I laughed often. Not least at the sight of a man who promises to carry out a sex change operation for £50 and carries around a plastic bag with a "pair of tits" in it (which, later, are presented to Charles and Camilla) and a calendar of celebrity manhoods which features the penises of such luminaries as Gyles Brandreth, John Bishop, Simon Callow, and the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Something Toast dismisses as "enough to put a chap off his boiled egg". That's once he's got over his crush on guest star Jon Hamm. Seen in Toast, wearing a Lovejoy mask. Elsewhere regulars like Alan Ford, Morgana Robinson, and Peter Davison are back and they're joined by guests of the quality of Paul Whitehouse, Jim Moir, Bob Mortimer, Brian Blessed (as Toast's dying dad), Amanda Donohoe, and Timothy West as the ageing alcoholic thespian Ormond Sackler.

It all goes towards making a very lightweight but very silly and very enjoyable couple of hours. Who wouldn't want to spend time in a world so bonkers that it includes a version of Twelfth Night that primarily features dogs as actors as "a metaphor for what's happening in Syria". Toast Of Tinseltown next.