An extravagant sketchfest made to celebrate the new millennium, with comedy celebrities looking back at a thousand years of history. Highlights included the reunion of Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett, who appeared with Stephen Fry in a variation of Marty Feldman and John Law's masterful 'class' sketch from The Frost Report; Victoria Wood in a sketch with Dame Thora Hird; Harry Enfield taking his Tim Nice-But-Dim character through history (calling himself, in a Viking sketch, Tim Norse-But-Dim); and Brian Blessed's appearance as Henry VIII, visiting a marriage guidance counsellor (Jack Dee).

In spite of the heavyweight cast, though, this was hardly vintage viewing. The targets were soft (historical sketches are hardly ground-breaking) and much of the satire was leaden and wide of the mark. Not the most promising start to a new millennium of comedy.