I love discovering comedy that was ‘before my time’ and so when I saw a DVD of Harry Worth the other day, I had to buy it.

‘Thirty Minutes Worth’ is a sketch-based series featuring Harry always in his same, bumbling persona. As the opening titles roll, we’re treated to a couple of ‘quickie’ sketches, after which Harry emerges from behind a Morecambe & Wise-style curtain with a stool, and does a short monologue to camera.

The settings for the sketches that follow are varied – a Star Trek spoof, Harry visiting a sick friend, Harry getting locked out of his house with a neighbour, and so on. All of them feature Harry being Harry, and all of them feature Worth’s trademark, which is the sort of daftness and confusion that made Frank Spencer so popular, albeit without the slapstick.

The series was made by Thames, and it’s here where alarm bells started to ring when I first pressed ‘play’ on the DVD. ITV comedies, particularly those from the 70s and 80s, were often weakly written and a mere shadow of their BBC counterparts. There were exceptions of course – ‘Rising Damp’, Kenny Everett’s Thames show and, if you liked your humour bawdy, ‘On the Buses’ also had its moments – but overall, the standards were low.

I’m sure that someone must have written a book analysing why the BBC managed to get it so right with comedy while the ITV companies got it so wrong. Contemporary to this series of ‘Thirty Minutes Worth’ were ‘Dad’s Army’, ‘Monty Python’s Flying Circus’ and ‘Are You Being Served?’ – all top BBC shows which proved that material could be produced then that still amuses today.

Unfortunately, ‘Thirty Minutes Worth’ does not stand up well today. While Harry himself does his best with the material he has, the writing is just too weak to raise many laughs at all. Over-long sketches bumble on, with the audience laughing weakly, until the clock runs out and the sketch ends, often with little or no pay-off.

It’s still good to see Harry’s persona that, in his heyday, must have delighted audiences. Glimpses of his magic can still be seen – there are some wonderfully inventive ideas in some of the sketches, and his word-play is often extraordinary, but it falls flat much too often to sustain the show.

How sad that his earlier shows are missing, and we are left with recordings of a man who is past his best and is not being well-served by his post-BBC employer. All I knew of Harry Worth beforehand was his signature arm-and-leg-in-the-shop-window gag. I can now appreciate that he offered much more than this, only echos of which can be glimpsed in this series by Thames.

‘Thirty Minutes Worth Series One (1972) – a Thames Television production released by Revelation through Fremantle Media.