BBC apologises for Vaughan sitcom

The BBC's head of comedy has apologised for the Johnny Vaughan sitcom 'Orrible.

Sophie Clarke Jervoise says she feels responsible that a show that seemed so promising did not come out as expected.

Critics savaged the comedy and it shed viewers, with figures plummetting from 2.5million to 1.5million in just two weeks.

Clarke Jevoise told a Writers' Guild meeting at Bafta's London headquarters tonight that she felt she let writers Johnny Vaughan and Ed Allen down

She said: "There was a real buzz about it - fantastic writers had creating a world they knew with brilliantly funny characters - we really let them down.

"It's hard during the production process to see what's wrong when you're shooting a whole series out of sequence.

"It didn't turn our so well as expected and I feel we let the writers down."

The show about dodgy characters on the verges of crime was screened last autumn and proved a disappointment for Vaughan's fans

At the time, The Observer's TV critic Kathryn Flett said: "Woefully badly-written, acted, structured and directed, it is an object lesson in what can happen when a 'star' is over-indulged, and as such reflects very badly on the BBC."

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Published: 22 May 2002