On TV last night

Ask The Family (BBC2)

Selling Houses (C4)

AS far as I know, presenter Robert Robinson didn't have his thigh stroked by a mother and the children weren't called "silly ass" and made to wear a donkey mask. Such things would have been unthinkable 30 years ago in Ask The Family, that respectably middle class programme where teams of family members were quizzed by headmasterish Robinson.

Enlisting madcap Saturday morning children's show presenters Richard McCourt and Dominic Wood to front an updated version of the old show must have seemed like a good idea. Early results indicate that it was a bad idea.

Much as I admire their weekend TV antics, Dick and Dom's move from Da Bungalow to Da Family leaves them stranded in no viewer's land, between children's and adults' TV. It's like getting Basil Brush to host Mastermind (although, on reflection, that might be more interesting than John Humphrys doing it).

The BBC is helpfully screening old editions of Ask The Family so you can compare and contrast with the more colourful Dick and Dom version. Robinson was insufferable and patronising as the original presenter. "Do not buzz before I've finished or I will penalise you," he warned contestants. "Well done, lad," he told a child who'd successfully answered a question.

Dick and Dom encourage families to participate more. Mother Ali took this as permission to run amok. She was a fan of Dom (you could tell by the way she stroked his thigh) and chased him around the studio. "I think we have a mad one here," he observed. Midwife Ali confirmed this by revealing that after delivering team-mate William's babies, she slept with him. "In a mutual friendship way," added Dom to avoid confusion (and divorce).

The questions retain the sound and picture rounds from the original but are much simpler. Nothing like the "which is the greater and by how much: half of a half all squared or half of the square of a half?" asked by Robinson. Dick and Dom have two glamorous assistants. "Ladies, whip it off," they instructed when the women entered with a board covered with a cloth.

The dads had to remember items on a tray carried by the women, who did their best to distract them by jiggling around as they tried to memorise the items. "Don't dribble," instructed Dick, or it may have been Dom. "Otherwise we'll have a dribbly Ed and a dribbly Willie".

I can just hear Robert Robinson tut-tutting at such comments. Or echoing estate agent Andrew Winter's cry of "This is horrible." He was summing up his feelings about Mark and Lorraine's semi in Hastings. Despite 54 viewings, they'd had no offers. You could see why, even if they couldn't. Mark is a farmer with 400 sheep, horses and dogs. These were kept elsewhere, although the appearance of the house suggested otherwise.

Hobson's Choice, York Theatre Royal

IN the programme notes, director Gregory Floy makes Harold Brighouse's classic play sound awfully serious with talk of alcoholism, feminism, chauvinism, snobbery, single parenting and the class struggle. Those may be some of the themes but I'd rather go along with his other description of it as "a delightfully satisfying comedy", especially when delivered with such exquisite comic timing and sense of fun by the first-rate York cast.

The theatre's long-serving pantomime dame, Berwick Kaler, stars as Henry Hobson, a drunk and a tyrant who treats his three daughters like dirt, expecting them to run his shoemaker's shop out of duty not wages. As the story opens, he's complaining about "the general increase in upishness" they're showing towards him. Little does he realise that eldest daughter Maggie is plotting a revolution that will see her marry timid bootmaker Willie Mossop, set up business on her own and blackmail Hobson into allowing his two other daughters to marry the men of their, not his, choice.

Kaler is taking his first serious part at the theatre for nearly 20 years, although no-one can doubt that he takes his role of dame very seriously too. If he never seems quite harsh enough as Hobson, he does extract maximum laughs as Hobson faces a difficult choice. David Shelley matches him as Willie, who grows from shy and put-upon bootmaker into a confident husband and businessman, while Emma Gregory's no-nonsense Maggie displays an iron will that bends once she marries.

* Runs until April 16. Tickets (01904) 623568.

Steve Pratt

Waiting for Gateaux, The Customs House, South Shields

AN opening night to rapturous applause was the chocolate on the Kit Kat for regional comedy writing duo, Ed Waugh and Trevor Wood. There's bound to be a slight nervousness about a new play that's sold out ten weeks before curtain-up. And how to follow their previous successes - Good to Firm, Raising the Stakes and Dirty Dusting - is a huge hurdle. In tone and texture, Waiting For Gateaux is different; it's darker, meatier and more skilfully constructed. But it has a similar mixture of wit to the earlier plays - visual, verbal and various - that made the first night audience howl with laughter. What's more, the slimmers' club subject matter is universal. It's well laced with calorific comfort and like all good comedy drama, not only does it burst with contradiction (the slimmers order curries, pizzas and chips during their break at the club), but it teeters on the brink of disaster. Angela Szalay injects warmth and humanity into Maureen and holds the play together, while David Whitaker's Donald is a beautifully crafted, shrivelling heap of manhood. They're well supported by Heather Phoenix's brassy Jackie, Tracy Whitwell, the posh villain, and Viktoria Kay, who is a very convincing Goth. Jackie Fielding does a masterful job with the direction.

* Runs until Saturday. Box office 0191-454 1234.

Nicola Marsde