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Television

Imagine if Are You Being Served? had starred Laurence Olivier: ITV’s Vicious reviewed

For a good sitcom, catch the latest series of BBC2’s Episodes. Plus: does BBC2’s The Game end on an infuriating cliffhanger finale with the cry of ‘second series, please’? Of course it does

6 June 2015

9:00 AM

6 June 2015

9:00 AM

Monday saw the return of possibly the weirdest TV series in living memory. Imagine a parallel universe in which Are You Being Served? had starred Laurence Olivier, John Gielgud and Janet Suzman, and you might get some idea of what ITV’s Vicious is like. Alternatively, I suppose, you could just watch the thing and realise that no, you’re not drunk — you really are seeing Derek Jacobi, Ian McKellen and Frances de la Tour acting their socks off in a sitcom that would have been considered rather creaky in 1975.

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