No 73

Simply great. "No 73" was the best Saturday morning children's TV series I've ever seen - and having seen an episode recently, I'm struck by what fun the colourful 1980s fashions, so derided in the priggish 90s and 2000s, actually were.

Centre stage was Sandi Toksvig as Ethel. Ethel was a bit of a dithering dimwit of a landlady, kind as could be, but definitely not the brightest of people. This made Ms Toksvig's slides out of character into her own sharp minded and witty self all the more enjoyable.

The next door neighbours, Hazel and Martin Edwards, were a very 1980s TV couple. The ethos of that decade was to show that men shared many of the faults traditionally associated only with women, and Martin was the nag and sticky beak. Hazel was good natured and long-suffering.

Guest bands, originally in the lounge, later in the cellar, included the Red Skins and the Associates, not your usual Saturday morning pop idols.

The rest of the cast, Dawn, Harry, Neil, Kim and Fred the postman all added their own distinctive charms to the series and the brilliance of fictional comic chaos mixed with Saturday morning magazine style, was inspired.

The show was never the same after Sandi left in 1986. The house was finally demolished in 1988, to be replaced, briefly, by a Wild West theme park. Awful.

But from 1982 to 1986 No 73 was, in my humble opinion, simply the best!