Agonising aunt serves up bad gags by the bucketful

So Joan Rivers, who has made a living being rude, but not too rude, about what American celebrities wear, has a talk show.

The Joan Rivers Position (TV2, 9.30 tonight) - the title is intended to be rude, but not too rude - casts her as part-stand-up comic, part-chat show hostess, part-agony aunt.

Her first guest was Graham Norton, who had a show called So Graham Norton and whose production company produces this show. So it was all very chummy and lived up to the double entendre promised in both title and guest.

The agony aunt section lives up to its promise in that it is truly agonising to watch. Rivers calls out the name of an audience member who has written in with a problem which she then proceeds to solve with a series of bad jokes.

The real joke is that the audience is British and she gets to make their stiff upper lips quiver with naughty, straight-shooting American humour.

This is partly what makes Rivers so popular. She's a celebrity who hangs out with celebrities but gets away with being rude about celebs - mostly about their frocks.

And the best part of the show is the stand-up. "I'm the one who told Woody Allen, 'Make Mia happy, get close to her kids'." That got an "ooh" from the audience.

She wore a gold outfit. "I found this in the back of my late husband's closet and there was a blonde still in it."

Her late husband killed himself. Telling jokes about him is therapy, and a way of getting her own back.

On last week's show there was a bloke who had written in to confess his fear of balloons.

"Have you had, like, a horrible thing happen with a balloon?" asked Rivers.

A horrible thing involving a balloon was about to happen. Cue a topless babe wearing ... balloons. Cue a naughty party game posing as aversion therapy.

Balloon-phobic man had to put a cork with a pin in the end of it in his mouth then had to, sigh, pop the balloons. We got to see boobs.

There was a man with strategically placed balloons so that Graham Norton could join in the fun. These balloons were in the shape of men's rude bits.

All of which was pretty scary, but not as frightening as Rivers. She's in her 70s and has hair that doesn't move and a face that can't. Except for her mouth, which is never still and very large - it has to be to accommodate the endless stream of wisecracks.

It's all very mad; it's not often funny. Which is a shame because Rivers is rather wonderful. She totters around, a tiny figure on high, high heels, less a force of nature than a miracle of iron will and plastic surgery.

She is, somehow, fascinating. The talk isn't. She asked Norton what celebs he would like to sleep with. There were foreskin jokes.

Tonight there is Jordan. Who will presumably provide her own balloons. Sorry, but the jokes will be terrible so I might as well get in first.