Mike Bassett: England Manager

Bassett, having guided the Canaries to the Mr Clutch Cup, is given the task of taking managerless England to the World Cup Finals in Brazil. He's an honest incompetent of the old school who calls his players Smudger, Deano, Wacko and Tonka. Played with admirable gusto by Ricky Tomlinson, Mike Bassett is a great comic creation who writes his team on the back of a fag packet. Unfortunately, it seems that's also where they wrote the script.

There are many ideas and gags here, but they don't burst through from the midfield to score. You can see Tomlinson trying to give Bassett a pathos that isn't there. In the end, he's a real character but he's only got caricatures around him, no one to play off.

And while there are laughs to be had, they're ultimately cheap: the digestive-dunking boardroom at Lancaster Gate (this too is a period piece of sorts) use Bassett as a patsy; the football press are all fat and wear cheap leather jackets; a player sulks about not having a nickname. Tomlinson deserves better - the lad should be playing Champions League football week in week out.

The week's two very different British efforts about times past are followed by two polar studies of African-American experience.