KEY POINTS:
The trouble with Star Stories: Victoria and David (tomorrow night, TV One) is that the true story of Victoria and David is beyond parody.
You couldn't make up the fact that they had matching thrones at their wedding. Or that David went through a period of wearing skirts.
So when you attempt a parody, it falls flat. You get the sense that the makers of this series, on the evidence of the first episode, realised this early on, so they resorted to over-the-top caricature and really rude bits instead.
They must have made a decision, too, to go for actors who look and sound nuffink like David and Victoria. And Alex Ferguson is portrayed as a shouting (possibly true), foul-mouthed (also possibly true) control freak (also) who has the hots for David. Can't you sue over that sort of thing?
There really are people like Steve Coogan's latest incarnation, Tommy, (Saxondale, UKTV, tonight, 9pm) a former roadie who could and does bore his country with wildly exaggerated (but still wildly boring) anecdotes from his former life.
He has a former wife too. This is either the reason he attends anger management courses in the kiddy books section of the local library, or the reason he has a former wife is because of the anger management problems. Asked to analyse the similarities between love and hate at one of these sessions, Tommy said: "The things I love and hate couldn't be more different. I love my daughter, my Mustang, my girlfriend ... the way Eno can paint a picture with music. But I f***ing hate my ex-wife."
Tommy is now a pest controller who contracts to a firm called Stealth Pest Control. Tommy drives a van with Simply the Pest! written on its side.
This is so dreadful it is funny, but you just know that somewhere there really is a pest control firm who thought such a clever pun should be put on the side of their vans.
Tommy is a motor mouth - he never, ever shuts up - who thinks he's a wit and who is desperately hanging on to his youth by wearing the same clothes he wore as a 25 year old. He used to be hip, or so he thinks (he can only ever have been a twit and a bore.)
He was probably a bit wild, now he lives with the lovely Magz who sells subversive (not very) T-shirts and posters. She is a bit fat. He hangs out with The Stang Group, a bunch of petrol heads of a certain age "whose idea of male grooming is sucking the BBQ sauce from their beards".
Magz has a shop called Smash the System (oh, dear), and "the local Traders Association had a vote, and they said my window display was borderline obscene. I only had the one poster up. The Archbishop of Canterbury doing a moonie."
Tommy: "The one where he's got a firework up his bottom?"
Magz: "I offered to change it to a Roman Candle."
Tommy: "I don't think the type of firework's the issue."
Tommy is, like all of Coogan's characters, a loser who doesn't know he's a loser. But while there was nothing lovable about the appalling Alan Partridge, Tommy - despite being as deluded a character - is really rather sweet.
When he's caught by his boarder wearing Magz' makeup (some kinky thing we really don't want to know about) he pretends it's all a trick, that Magz put it on while he was sleeping. Oh, the pranks that girl pulls.
True Stories has David in a hairband and diamonds and he still didn't ring true. Tommy does - horribly, pathetically, brilliantly so. You couldn't make David up. You can find Tommys everywhere.