Which, to British TV viewers, will always mean a group of misfit ghosts including a court jester, a pantomime horse and a woman who would go on to star in Coronation Street.

But which may now become known to Americans as a film starring Ben Stiller.

Twentieth Century Fox have acquired the rights to the supernatural British comedy and will turn it into a movie, after a plan for it to star Russell Brand fell through.

In the TV series, Rentaghost is a company in South Ealing run by Fred Mumford, a man who was never a success in life but who hopes to make a killing in the afterlife by finding work for fellow ghosts.

His first and only recruits are the mischievous jester Timothy Claypole (Michael Staniforth) and Hubert Davenport (Michael Darbyshire), a Victorian gentleman shocked by the modern world.

They rent an office from Harold Meaker, and as the series developed - there were nine in all - other characters were introduced.

These included Nadia Popov, who suffers from hayfever and teleports away when she sneezes, Scottish witch Hazel and pantomime horse Dobbin.

Nadia was played by Walsall-born Sue Nicholls (pictured above), now famous for playing Audrey Roberts in Corrie. Lynda Marchal played Nadia's cousin Tamara and went on to find greater fame as crime writer Lynda La Plante.

Other household names included Christopher Biggins, who played entrepreneur Adam Painting, always keen to involve the ghosts in his latest scheme.

When actor Michael Darbyshire died in 1979, Anthony Jackson (Mumford) declined to appear in the next series, leaving Michael Staniforth - who also wrote and sang the theme tune - as the only original ghost.

Davenport and Mumford's absences were explained at the start of the series by them having acquired permanent haunting jobs at a stately home.

After Mumford's departure, the business was taken over by Harold Meaker (Edward Brayshaw) and his wife Ethel (Ann Emery, sister of comic Dick).

The long-suffering neighbours of Rentaghost were the Perkins, who thought the Meakers were mad. They had a magic talisman which made their every wish come true, with 'hilarious' results as they are not aware of what was going on.

Originally called Second Chance but fortunately given the snappier title, Rentaghost came 12th in a Channel 4 poll of the greatest children's TV shows.

It's not the most hilarious of programmes, relying a lot on corny old jokes, dreadful puns and slapstick, but it must have done something right for 58 episodes to be made.

Even if every episode of the last series ended in the same way, with the cryptic words "Don't go into the cellar....!"

It was even turned into a stage musical, bizarrely written by squeaky-voiced Joe Pasquale, which toured the country in 2006.

ROZ LAWS

THINK of the archetypal bobby on the beat, and odds are you'll think of PC George Dixon.

Played by veteran actor Jack Warner, Dixon of Dock Green enjoyed a remarkable career and was still to be found behind the desk at the station long after he really should have retired.

In fact, his longevity was even more of a miracle than it appeared. He'd already been dead once.

Dixon first appeared in a 1950 Ealing Studios film, The Blue Lamp, in which he was shot and killed by criminal Tom Riley (played by Dirk Bogarde, no less). But it was decided to resurrect him for a TV series.

And what a series! Dixon started out as the bobby with a heart of gold, a wise widower raising an only daughter, Mary (played first by Billie Whitelaw and later by Jeanette Hutchinson).

After the death of his son in the war, the gentle copper took a paternal interest in young detective Andy Crawford (Peter Byrne), who would go on to marry 23-year-old Mary.

Initially subtitled "Some Stories of a London Policeman", each episode started with Dixon saluting the camera and saying: "Good evening all", changed to just "Evening all" in the 1970s.

Episodes finished with a few words from Dixon on the evils of crime, before wishing viewers "Goodnight, all". At the end of a series, he would tell the audience he was "going on holiday for a few weeks" so that they wouldn't worry about not seeing him around.

It was the most popular police procedural of its day but as the 1970s brought more realistic cop series from both sides of the Atlantic to the British public, Dixon of Dock Green seemed increasingly out of touch with the times.

Writer Ted Willis always maintained that all the stories were based on fact, and that Dixon was an accurate reflection of what goes on in an ordinary police station.

But 1956 episode The Rotten Apple was an exception. PC Tom Carr (Paul Eddington) was found to have been burgling houses while on his beat - and it was one of the few times that Dixon was seen to lose his temper.

He furiously declared that there was nothing worse than "a bent copper", forced Carr to take off the uniform jacket he was "not fit to wear", and then promptly arrested him.

He moved up through the ranks, of course, becoming desk sergeant. But by the final years of the series Warner was getting elderly and looking increasingly implausible even in a desk job.

The actor had increasing difficulty moving about, helped slightly by a treatment involving bee stings, and in the final series, when Warner was 80, Dixon was retired and re-employed as a civilian collator.

At its peak Dixon of Dock Green pulled in close on 14 million viewers and even when it had to go up against the gritter, more realistic Z-Cars, gentle George still attracted more than 11 million fans.

It was briefly revived in 2005 as a radio drama with David Calder as George Dixon, David Tennant as Andy Crawford, and Charlie Brooks as Mary Dixon, and did well enough to warrant a second series.

And here's a final fascinating fact. The Blue Lamp movie was produced by Michael Balcon, a former pupil of George Dixon School in Birmingham, and that's how Britain's most famous bobby got his name!

IN 1970, the Monty Python team stayed at the Gleneagles Hotel in Torquay, where they encountered someone John Cleese describes as "the most marvellously rude man I've ever met".

Owner Donald Sinclair snapped at guests, told off Terry Gilliam for holding his fork in the wrong hand and removed Eric Idle's bag because he feared it was a bomb placed by a disgruntled ex-employee.

While the other Pythons moved to another hotel, Cleese and his wife Connie Booth were fascinated with Sinclair and stayed on to study him. Five years later, he was immortalised on TV in the shape of Basil Fawlty.

Cleese played the hen-pecked owner of the Torquay hotel Fawlty Towers, while Booth was maid Polly Sherman.

Prunella Scales played the formidable Sybil Fawlty, variously described as the "toxic midget" and "rancorous, coiffured old sow" by her husband.

And Andrew Sachs was Spanish waiter Manuel, who mostly said 'Que?' and kept a pet rat called Basil he insisted was a Siberian hamster.

It's a wonder that anyone ever stayed in the hotel, as guests were looked down on by snobby Basil, who called them "riff-raff" and "cretins".

Only 12 episodes were made, six shown in 1975 and the rest in the second series, which didn't air until 1979. The delay has been put down to an unwillingness by Booth to write any more episodes, as she and Cleese were divorced by then.

The comedy nearly wasn't shown at all, as the first script was dismissed by a BBC executive as "full of clichéd situations and stereotypical characters".

Even when it was broadcast, it wasn't an immediate hit - one review had the headline 'Long John Short On Jokes'.

But ratings and acclaim picked up and in 2000, Fawlty Towers came top in a British Film Institute list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes.

In the 1970s, it was sold to 17 countries including Spain, although it was initially a flop there. It was successfully resold after Manuel's nationality was changed to Italian or, in the Catalan region, Mexican.

While set in Torquay, the white hotel pictured was actually the Wooburn Grange Country Club in Buckinghamshire, which has since been demolished and a housing estate built.

The sign outside had differently rearranged letters in each episode, spelling out phrases like Fatty Owls, Flay Otters and Watery Fowls.

Memorable lines of dialogue include "Don't mention the war" and "Duck's off", along with "Can't we get you on Mastermind, Sybil? Next contestant, Sybil Fawlty from Torquay, specialist subject, the bleedin' obvious."

Cleese revealed that his favourite scene is when Basil attempts to hold a fire drill.

In other trivia, the hotel has 26 rooms, the final episode was broadcast seven months after the other five because of a union strike at the BBC, and Andrew Sachs received £700 in compensation after being burned in a kitchen fire during the making of The Germans episode.

Image by jamescronin via Flickr

Each time The Apprentice starts I wonder if it can keep on delivering quality entertainment, each time it proves that it can.

The formula is perfect....

1 Very rich bloke with a grumpy old face only his mother could love
+
2 Gurning sidekicks with a patronising manner and a barrowload of well-timed glares
and grimaces
+
12 deluded and egotistical drongos
=
TV heaven.

The line that reassured me all was well was when one drongo said to another drongo in a Braveheart esque rallying call "Come on, let's make soup like we have never made soup before."

The response from the other drongo?

"We never have made soup before."

Image via Wikipedia

Dermot O'Leary has admitted he is disappointed not to have been made the host of the US X Factor, according to reports.

The Brit had been shortlisted for the job but Simon Cowell has now revealed the US version of his TV talent show will be co-hosted by a "non-conventional" female superstar and a male pin-up singer.

Dermot was quoted as telling the newspaper: "I am obviously disappointed that I didn't get the American gig. I would have loved a crack at it. At least I was the only Brit to make the shortlist."

It could of course be more to do with the fact that he has a presenting style that is at best gushing and at worst resembling a wardrobe.

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I have been watching this Heston Blumenthal: Mission Impossible thing on Channel 4 and I have to say I think it's very entertaining, good TV but ultimately fairly stupid.

The first week saw him go into a hospital where yes the food was diabolical according to the patients but his replacement of worms injected with ketchup was slight absurd to say the least.

We then had the great Cineworld episode last week where he did actually come up with a good idea of an inside out hotdog, but he also was genuinely upset when his idea of serving up 4D 'treats' whilst the film played out was rejected flatly.

Hardly surprising when he was replicating the tastes and smells of fish dismemberment, and giving cinema bosses little soap dispensers full of white pineapple liquid whilst an orgy played out on screen.

These ideas make his seaweed cottage pie from last night pretty sensible.

Of course the idea is that he is a food scientist with wacky ideas - I get that.

Really though if a hospital, airport, cinema want common sense, money making/saving ideas with a practical outlook they need to be looking at Jamie Oliver.

The whole point of this show is just a showcase for his insanity and I don't buy his hurt little boy routine when they turn their nose up. He is an intelligent guy, but as a problem solver for food conundrums he is not the right chef!

It is great though and I am sure it gets the punters through the door at his Michelin Star restaurant.

IT'S almost a shock when Matt Lucas turns up as himself, as we're so used to him as the man of many faces.

In Little Britain he played everyone from chav teen mum Vicky Pollard and wheelchair user Andy Pipkin to weight loss guru Marjorie Dawes and PVC-clad Daffyd, 'the only gay in the village'.

And in the BBC1 mockumentary Come Fly With Me, he dresses up as Precious, the black woman who runs the coffee kiosk, demanding elderly passenger Hetty and check-in girl Keeley.

All this transformation takes hours in the make-up chair, as revealed in Tuesday's documentary Come Fly On The Wall.

So it came as a pleasant relief for Matt when a role required him to do absolutely nothing to his appearance. Because even though he's playing - wait for it - a garden gnome, Matt just had to provide his voice.

He stars in the new animated film Gnomeo and Juliet, which opens on Friday.

Matt says: "I'm usually up at 4.30am to have prosthetics put on, so it was lovely to get up at 9am, have some breakfast, get into a car they've sent for you, and sit down with a cup of tea in a recording studio to say six lines and then go home.

"I did that about twice a year for three years, then I turn up at the premiere where everyone says 'well done', and give interviews where I say 'acting is terribly hard, you know'. But it wasn't on this, it was very pleasurable."

Set in Verona Drive in Stratford-upon-Avon, Gnomeo and Juliet features a Brummie Miss Montague (Julie Walters) involved in a feud with her next-door-neighbour Mr Capulet (Richard Wilson). All their gnomes and garden ornaments are deadly enemies too, but then Gnomeo Montague (James McAvoy) falls for Juliet Capulet (Emily Blunt).

Matt plays Gnomeo's best friend Benny, based on the Shakespeare character Benvolio - though his name also allows a handy segue into the Elton John song Bennie and the Jets.

Elton and his husband David Furnish produced the film, another reason for Matt to take part. He's a good friend of the couple but has long been a lover of Elton's music.

"I'm a proper fan, I'd seen him about a dozen times before I even met him.

"It's hard to pick my favourite Elton song. I told Bernie Taupin, his lyricist, that Song For Guy is his best work to wind him up, because it doesn't have any words.

"A good karaoke song is I Guess That's Why They Call It The Blues," adds Matt, bursting into song and demonstrating with hand gestures.

"I think Shakespeare would love Gnomeo and Juliet. He'd be dancing in his grave to the music of Elton John, that famous gnomosexual..."

It's not the first time Matt has appeared in a Shakespearean production. In 2000 he played Thersites in the tragedy Troilus and Cressida at the Old Vic, though it was memorable for all the wrong reasons.

"The director, Dominic Dromgoole, wrote a chapter in his book Will And Me about it, classing it as a career low. He blamed the overt alcoholism of the cast, but I was stone cold sober so I don't know what my excuse was.

"The reviews were terrible and it's a wonder I ever got back on stage again.

"One night I went on and had just said the first word of my speech, 'Agamemnon!', when a woman tutted really loudly in the front row. I thought 'Come on, I've only done four syllables, give us a chance!'.

"It was worse than any heckle I've ever had to cope with."

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Jane Lynch has said her Glee character Sue Sylvester is inspired by X Factor judge Simon Cowell.

The actress said that she thinks her alter-ego, famous for her cutting put-downs, would make a great panellist on the TV talent show.

She said: "I think Sue Sylvester has British in her. I think the US look at the British as a race that tells it how it is.

"And if ever there was a guy who tells it like it is, then it's Simon Cowell. You could definitely look at Sue and say there's a lot of Simon in her."

The turkey has gone and the turkeys have gone off our screen.

What a letdown the festive television was.

Here's what I thought....

EastEnders - More depressing than usual with a ridiculously twee ending tagged on
Corrie - Tracey Barlow returns - surprise, surprise she's a bitch - yawn
The Royle Family - Once again the saviour, more of the same comedy gold by numbers
Doctor Who - Quality but predictable quality
Benidorm - made me cry - it was that bad

I can't even think of anything else it was that memorable - I mean, Miss Marple on Christmas night? Come on!

It always makes me laugh when the TV producers wield the axe on the child actors who they deem not grown up enough or not up to the standard of acting that is requaired anymore.

EastEnders have been up to it this week with Ben Mitchell.

The new Ben Mitchell looks just like the old Ben Mitchell if you imagine he has being squished and squashed through the EastEnders Chav transformation machine...

Spot the difference? Well yeah you can...

Not only was last night's episode of The Apprentice probably the best one yet it also saw justice prevail with Stuart Baggs getting a stay of execution at the expense of the Midland's very own lacklustre Liz Locke.

He is the only one in the whole show who seems to have a personality and what's more he comes out with some glorious one-liners without even realising.

He didn't win the overall prize for one liners last night though, that went to Jamie Lester who came out with some corkers whilst doing the London tours...

"That's the gherkin, it's called the gherkin because it's shaped like a gerkhin.."

"On your left is the River Thames, the second biggest river in London."

And my personal favourite graphic description of death to a bunch of tourists including small children...

"He crushed their skulls on the floor and snapped their necks in half.."

There was also the battle of Trafalgar Square with Stuart trying to pinch custom from the opposition team only to be told to go forth and multiply by an incensed Chris. The most animated we have seen him all series.

The one trick pony - field of ponies rant from Stuart was enough to keep him in...

Let's just hope that the legend that is Stuart Baggs can overcome a grilling in the interviews - I think they may be a little harder on him than Lord Sugar.

Back Baggs is what I say!

Should I have laughed? I did sorry...

The sight of the kids toy stumbling over the fake bridge looked daft...

IAN Hislop is best known as the editor of Private Eye and razor-tongued panellist on the long-running topical quiz show Have I Got News For You. In Ian Hislop's Age of the Do-Gooders at 9pm on Monday on BBC2, he'll be looking at some of history's greatest reformers and philanthropists.

1 In this three-part series, Ian reveals who his heroes are. They include Dr Thomas Barnardo (1845-1905) who was a 'missionary turned children's home founder with a controversial genius for publicity'. Another is campaigning journalist WT Stead (1849-1912) who died during the sinking of the Titanic after 'buying a 13-year-old girl for £5' to highlight the scandal of child prostitution.

2 Viewers on Monday will also see Ian in Birmingham's Shakespeare Memorial Room and on the towpath beneath Water Street. His Midland heroes include London-born George Dawson (1821-1876), who moved to Birmingham's Mount Zion Baptist Chapel in 1844 and advocated political service as a civic duty.

3 Ian was born on July 13, 1960 in Mumbles, Swansea. His engineer father David, who died when his son was just 12, was Scottish and his late mother Helen was from Jersey. He grew up in Nigeria, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Hong Kong.

4 Ian is a man of many talents including broadcaster, author and after dinner speaker. Last May, his Radio 4 play Greed All About It, about the Wapping dispute, starred Sally Hawkins.

5 After losing a legal battle with the late Robert Maxwell, Hislop quipped: "I've just given a fat cheque to a fat Czech."

6 Ian is the only person to have appeared in every Have I Got News For You episode - and more than once on Room 101 after he was invited to turn the tables on Paul Merton, his fellow star on HIGNFY.

7 The father of two is an ambassador for the Scout Association.