Rik Mayall could probably walk on stage and sneeze and the audience would fall about laughing. And they certainly fall about with laughter at his recreation of Britain's most outrageous MP, Alan B'Stard.

B'Stard is back, sporting a red rosette as the man running New Labour. The man at nine Downing Street is now pulling the strings of Blair and Brown, nudging George Bush and Condoleeza Rice into attacking Norway and the BBC, and also plotting the downfall of his long-suffering wife Sarah.

But if his political colour has changed his ambitions have not.

He still wants absolute power and money and is prepared to use kidnap, false arrest, lies and every other weapon in his armoury to get what he wants.

B'Stard has been away from our television screens for 13 years but he still hates the poor, single mothers and all the targets of the Tory years, along with his New Labour targets so easily set up by Tony Blair.

This is outrageous comedy, probably too outrageous for today's television, and Mayall goes for lots of bad language and intimate discussions of his sexuality.

Perhaps because he's on stage, the satirical bite does not seem as clever and is certainly not as subtle as when B'Stard was first created.

In fact, virtually all his targets are hit with a sledgehammer and the wit is hardly rapier-like.

At two hours in length this show is in danger of being over-long and seems to be a little stretched.

Maybe 30 minutes a week for six weeks a year in the Eighties and Nineties was just right.

Mayall still likes to do the odd ad lib and seems not to remember all his lines, at times stumbling but quickly recovering.

The writers, Laurence Mark and Maurice Gran, do come up with some fine one-liners and you'll laugh a lot, but to me the show seemed a little dated.

Satire now is not what it was in the Eighties, even if dressed up with the leggy Alexandra Gunn as Condoleeza Rice. But do sit back and watch what Rik Mayall does best - gross you out and make you laugh.