watched Sky's "The Cafe".  Got to the end of Pt1 Ep1.  Had to turn it off and delete the other episodes I downloaded to watch.

What A pile of shite.  It started off slow, and then slipped itself into a self induced Coma.

It genuinely gave me a headache.

The other problem with "The Cafe" is they medlay'd (is that right?) the entire series best bits into the pre-release trailer.

This is basically what I saw.

Opening credits:

• Individual rolling camera shots of all cast members doing there daily activities.
• Camera pans over the beach, around the side of the Cafe and down do ground level.
• Shot of inside of Cafe, flicks between the 3 people in the cafe

• Ones knitting
• Ones reading a newspaper
• The owner is calculating the books.

(by now we are well into the first 5min)

Scene 1:

At Least 50sec of NOTHING…  Just flicks between the 3 people in the cafe.  Nothing funny thus far.

nan: "One of the bin men fell over this morning, Carol…"

pause

Carol: "Mmm"

pause – (audience waits for punch line)

nan: "He was in the road, and he just, fell over." - (and there it is! Oh the hilarity!)

pause

nan: "Carol?…"

pause

Carol: "Mmm"

nan: "One of the bin men fell over this morning.  He was in the road, and he just, fell over"- (yea.. its just as funny the second time round!  My side have split and my guts have trailed the floor)

pause

Aaand it was basically like that for the first 20min of the program.  Dry, not even Humorous, acting.

Also, the "nan" was knitting all the way through it, but it kept changing.  I "think" it was changing in corrospondence with her intelligence.  One minute she would say something dull and profound, and the knitting was a mess with holes in and everything.  The next minute she would say something intelligent and the knitting was neat and tidy.  Subliminal joke?  if it was, it was not funny (maybe it was killed by the rest of the lack of comedy).

I switched it off, and made a cup of tea.

You know how you feel your tummy building up to that point where you know your about to bellow out some positive verbal feed back to an observed situation, for example, watching a child run towards the wall at platform 9 3/4 in London, knowing full well the only place they are going is NOT Hogwarts, but A&E.? (thanks Russell).

Well,  I felt not a single twinge of snickerness, not a giggle, nor chuckle.  Not a single emotional tweak of joyness.

Seems like a lot of personal jokes between the characters, and the audience (us being the audience) has no idea whats funny.  Its like that awkward moment when you walk into a room and everyone, but you, is snickering quietly and going "Shh" to each other and you have no idea why and you think it could be you there snickering about…  That's exactly what it felt like watching this program.

Just looked at quite a few online reviews.  Lots of reviewers, including columnists and critics, are saying very much the same thing.  Its not looking promising for a second series.  In fact, people say this series might not survive the full run.

Hrmm, maybe I should post that ^ as a review?

watching "The Royal Bodyguard".  laughed my tits if by 5min.  Very funny.

What "the Cafe" should have done.

I don't remember 40 years age.

(with respect) I think your problem is, you've seen it all Mr G.  Please Don't take that as an insult, I have the same thing with my kids and what they think is "the in thing" at school…

Made me laugh maybe sometimes its good to clean off the old slapstick that the newer gen' haven't seen before.

However in your defence, I do think its written more for "The Chuckle Brothers", than "Sir David Jason"

Oh dear, not very many good reviews.

MORE than a million people turned off Sir David Jason’s new sitcom The Royal Bodyguard on Boxing Day – with thousands of his fans saying it made him look like a right plonker.

The debut episode of the slapstick comedy left an army of viewers feeling so royally disappointed they vented their spleen on Twitter.

Thousands criticised the BBC1 show with many people saying Sir David, 71, had been let down badly by the script.
 
Viewers said the sitcom was a bad joke, especially compared with Sir David’s previous comedy series for the Beeb when he played Del Boy Trotter in the classic Only Fools and Horses which finished in 1991.

One tweet said The Royal Bodyguard was “about as funny as a bad case of the Trotters”.

Another viewer, Shaun Taylor, said on Twitter: “This has to be the worst programme on TV this Christmas.”

Tina Hawkins added: “Contrived and predictable. Shame David Jason’s great name used for a poor script.”

And Susie Roberts said: “The Royal Bodyguard may return next Monday but I doubt any viewers will.”

The show had been scheduled to debut on Christmas Day but worried BBC bosses moved it to avoid a clash with Downton Abbey on ITV.

Eight million people were watching The Royal Bodyguard at the peak but there were 1.5 million fewer viewers by the end of the 30-minute episode.

Sir David plays blundering Captain Guy Hubble, an ex-guardsman who is promoted from head of security at Buckingham Palace car park to being the Queen’s bodyguard.

Even the normally pro-BBC magazine Radio Times admitted the six-part series got off to a bad start, saying: “Oh dear, we are not getting many complimentary tweets about The Royal Bodyguard. Can’t remember the last time we had a Twitter reaction like this.”

Much of the show’s comedy relied on visual gags – such as Captain Hubble hanging from a balcony in his underwear – but viewers say they have already seen enough.

Ray Ridley said on the Digital Spy website: “I think the BBC knew they had a stinker on their hands and premiered this when we are going to be more uncritical, p***ed, or a combination of the two.”

Andy23 said: “If it wasn’t for David Jason I’d expect this to be shown on CBBC. Were the Chuckle Brothers busy?”

While promoting the sitcom, Sir David said it was “a lovely piece of fun” but admitted that it was a “safe” comedy.