Absolute Power's amusing master of spin

Stephen Fry is playing at being very naughty, but it is none the less enjoyable for that - he does naughty so very well.

Absolute Power (tonight, TV One, 10.05pm) is as English as Fry, which is to say that it is like watching Private Eye should it ever be turned into a telly programme.

Most of the references are easy to get even if we might not be up on all the scandals involving public figures making twits of themselves. In any case, the gags are so heavily underlined that somebody from Texas would probably still get them.

In the first episode of the new season is bloke by the name of bin Laden (as in cousin of the other bin Laden) who wants to buy British Air.

It is the job of the public relations firm to come up with a plan to sell this idea to the British public. But that is just a vehicle, and a slight one at that, to allow Fry to deliver lines like, "If the smell of rat gets any stronger I shall vomit Niagara-ously", or his colleague Martin to say, "If you need me I shall be in my office drinking incontinentally".

Such a plot also allows a character from the Home Office to wander on, say "this chap ... he really is the most frightful pushy wog, don't you think?" then wander off. Yes, yes it's all very naughty and silly and he gets away with it because spinning PR for a living is all very silly.

Last week Fry's character, Charles, was in court for perjury. This had moments beyond silliness. Coming up with defence strategies to research such as O.J. Simpson, Lord Lucan and Hitler was plain juvenile. But having Charles say, "There was a time when people stood four square behind their fabrications, but now that the age of public redemption is upon us, it's people like me, paid liars, who get caught in the crossfire", is inspired.

You have to love television in which the word moreover is used (well, I do). As in, "moreover, I've never heard an anecdote so deliberately protracted to conceal information".

The PR firm's work is to get publicity of any dubious sort for its dubious clients. Charles ends up in court because he designed a sublime scandal for a disgraced MP involving underage sex and a jail term. All of which was an elaborate plot to sell the MP's dull book.

Charles' alleged (as in, "yes, of course he did it") involvement is an outrage. "If I had been responsible for orchestrating this inept bungling," he said in suitably outraged tones, "I should at least have got someone high profile in the role of deflowered school girl. Someone like Charlotte Church ... "

Very naughty. And it is very agreeable silliness, if you are of a mind to appreciate the spectacle of Fry as, in his character's words, "a dyspeptic Punch".