Take That, The Spice Girls and Boyzone have come back, so maybe the time is right for Nineties comedians to do the resurrection shuffle. Not that Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer split up, it is just that Vic tends to appear on the box with his wife Nancy these days rather than with his fellow purveyor of fine northern surrealism.

It was certainly good to see the duo reunited to host this BBC showcase, not to mention gratifying to see Bob in a pair of fluffy ankle boots while Vic briefly sported a fake hand. From the moment they lurched on stage the absurdist rapport that made them household names was still there, even if it was sometimes muffled by bad acoustics and limp material.

The better skits revolved around their well-honed name-dropping habit. Bob told a risqué story about Fiona Bruce while Vic dug a hole with a stuffed duck behind him. A Russell Brand reference deserved a bigger laugh but a Dragons’ Den spoof was frankly feeble. Things only truly ignited, however, with the revival of warped folkies Mulligan and O’Hare and their haunting ballad about betrayal by the man from Allied Carpets.

As for the guests, Steve Oram tastelessly impersonated a demented tramp, the impish Rob Rouse brilliantly recalled his dog jumping into his wife’s birthing pool, Alice Lowe played a delightfully sleazy Slavic songstress, magician Ali Cook did some eye-wateringly old tricks and the consistently comical Stephen K Amos closed with a winning set but then this critic cannot remember seeing Amos have a losing set.

Comedy has moved on since Vic and Bob’s heyday. But if they gigged together more often and got match fit, there is no reason why they cannot be sharp-shooting stars again. Chemistry like theirs cannot be created in a lab.