Billed as “kings of satire”, hopes were high for Friday night.

After all, Punt And Dennis have been working successfully together for more than 20 years, they’re both stalwarts of Radio 4 comedy and Dennis is great in that BBC sitcom Outnumbered.

Unfortunately, hopes were dashed within almost moments of the show opening, never to quite pick up. Serving up a series of light observations on Middle England obsessions such as inefficient trains and impenetrable public-service non-jobs such as “cluster development officer”, the jokes, at times, were mildly amusing, but nothing more.

Delivered within a straightforward structure, Punt read out, as if bored (though maybe he really was), some facts, which Dennis “made funny” by clowning around. While his takes on a drunk, a Morris dancer and most often, a velociraptor, were skilled, they were also intensely annoying.

I might not have cared about what Punt had to say (he didn’t seem to, so why should I?), but I didn’t have a chance to with Dennis’s constant interjections.

There were odd moments when things lifted, such as when the duo conducted their spoof surveys on the audience, but these were drowned out by the general poverty of the material. Things got even worse as the first half was rounded off with a song about cowboy builders that was so poorly written and badly delivered it was an embarrassment.

Shamefully lazy and unambitious, this show might have raised a few smiles, but that just wasn’t enough.